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I — I   Pages  restored  and/or  laminated/ 


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THE 


U.  S.  GRIMELL  EXPEDITIOI 


IN 


SEARCH  OF   SIR  JOHN  FRANKLIN. 


%  l^nsnnal  i^crrntinf. 


BY 


ELISHA   KENT   KANE,   M.D.,   U.S.N. 


NEW    YORK: 

HARPER    &    DROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 
389    A,i331    PEARL    STREET, 

r  U  A  N  K  r,  I  N     SQUARE. 

1853. 


I 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  one  tliousand 
right  hundred  and  flfly-lhree,  by 

Harper  &  Brothers, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  Di.«tri<'l 

of  New  York. 


TO 


HENRY    GRINNELL, 


THE  AtiTIlOH,  AND  ADVOCATE,  AND  I'ATRUN  OK  THE  UNITED  STATES 
RXPEOITION  IN  SEAIlrir  OF  SIR  .lOHN   FRANKLIN, 


d^ii  'Mmm  is  3nsrrihil. 


C 


'C 


NOTE. 

It  may  apologize,  perhaps,  for  some  imperfections 

in  this  book,  to  mention,  that  the  greater  portion  of  it 

has  gone  through  the  press  without  the  author's  re- 

visal.     While  he  was  engaged  in  preparing  it,  the  lib- 

erality  of  Mr.  Grinnell,  of  New  York,  and  Mr.  Peabody, 

of  London,  enabled  him  to  set  on  foot  a  second  Polar 

Expedition,  which  sailed  under  his  command  on  the 

3 1st  of  May  last.     It  was  his  purpose  to  remodel  some 

of  the  chapters,  and  to  add  one  or  two  on  collateral 

topics,  if  his  time  had  not  been  engrossed  by  the  prep. 

arations  for  his  departure. 

July,  1853. 


CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  I 

Introdittory    -Thr  Arrtif  Sra  —  Sir  Jdim  Franklin    -Lady  Franklin's    """^ 
A|)peal    -Organization  (if  tin;  American  Grinnell  Expedition i:i 

CHAPTER  H 

Proparations  for  Deparlurt  — The  Advance  and  Rescue  —Eqnipments- 
Ofliccrs  and  ('rew 17 

CHAPTER  HI. 

Departure  from  New  Vork— Creature  Comforts —First  Iceberg— Off  St. 
Jolin's «,| 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Davis's  Straits   -Counter-drin— Beginning  of  Arctic  Day —Fogs —The 
Siikkertoiipen ^9 

CHAPTER  V 

Whale-fish   Islands     -Disco. —The   Emma  Eugenia  —Kayacks— The 
Landing   -Esquimaux  Huts ;».-, 

CHAPTER  VI 

Uoat  Party  to  Lievely.— Royal  Inspectorrtte- Purchase  of  Furs —Floral 
and  geological  Character. — Field  Ice 1 1 

CHAPTER  VH. 

Tiie  Middle  Ice —The  Nortii  Water. —Omenak's  Fiord.— Interior  Water 
f 'oiiiiection  between  Coasts  of  Greenland 4s 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Formation  of  Icebergs  —Debacle  from  Glacier.— Mr.  Grundfitz   -Color 
and  Structure  of  Berg  Ice 54 

"       CHAPTER  IX. 
Svartehuk — Refraction ri 

CHAPTER  X. 

Jiimping-off  Place — Honesty  of  Kayackers. — Fast  in  "the  Pac!:."  -Its 
Elements  and  Form GS 


I  ■ 


K! 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

CHAP  PER  XI. 

Page 
Navigation  of  the  Pack.— Conning  Ship.— Heave:— 'Warp!— Track!— Haul'   76 

CHAPTER  XH. 

Devil's  Thumb. — Seals. — Birds. — Boring  the  Pack.— A  Bear  Hunt. — Fast  I 
— Planting  Ice-anchors 83 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  Ice. —  Snow-covered.  —  Water-sodden. —  Honey-combed.  —  Tough. — 
Red  Ice. — Currents. — Under  Currents. — Effects  of !I4 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Melville  Bay. — Glaciers. — Race  with  an  Iceberg. — Berg  splitting 98 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Opposite  Duneira  Bay. — Glaciers. — Height  of  Bergs. — Deceptions  of  Fog. 
— Formation  and  Forms  of  Bergs. — Birds 105 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Bear  Hunt. — Warm  Fog. — Hummocking. — A  Pinch. — Crustacea  and  Birds  116 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Refraction. — The  Arclir  Cuisine. — Glaciers. — .\dvantagos  of  Steamers — 
Esquimaux. — Frozen  Families  near  Cape  York 124 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

The  Crimson  Cliffs  of  Beverly. — Bessie's  Cove. — Glacier  Formatir  . — 
Red  Snow. — Atmospheric  Transfers 132 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

.\rctic  Highlands. — Florula. — Moss  Beds. — .\»iks'  Nests. — Trapping  /  ,is. 
— A  Black  Fox. — "  Good-by  to  Baffin." — Continuous  baylight 139 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Entering  Lancaster  Round. — Penny's  Squadron. — Sir  John  Ross  ;.  '  «he 
Felix. — The  Prince  A'bert.— Cape  Riley. — Traces  of  Sir  John  Franklin  : 
his  Encampment 149 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Visit  to  the  Encampment. — Beechy  Island. — Discovery  of  the  Graves. — 
Description  oi  them. — Conclusions :  and  Conjecture  as  to  Franklin's 
Course 159 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

United  Searching  Squadrons. — Visits. — Ice  drifting. — My  first  Dear. — Bar- 
low's Inlet. — Cornwallis  Island — Hummocks  and  Break-up. — Cold  in- 
creasing.— Rendezvous  of  Union  Bay 168 


CONTENTS.  IX 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

rage 
Wellington  Channel. — A  Gale. — Exciting  Navigation. — Orders  for  Return. 

— The  Rescue  nipped. — Illusion. — Ice  thickening. — Caught  in  the  Ice. 

—A  Balloon 1 79 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Wellington  Channel. — Drift  Northward. — Discoveries. — Grinnoll  Land. . .   189 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Grinnell  Land. — Discussion  of  Priority  of  Discovery 198 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

In  the  Ice  of  WeUington  Channel. — An  Ice  Battle. — Condensing  Moisture. 
— Hummocks. — Seal  Hunting. — Preparing  to  Winter  in  the  Ice. — Par- 
tial Break-up 208 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Wellington  Channel. —  Seals. — Pariielia. —  Ice  clianges. — Drift  South. — 
Approach  of  Winter. — '  Our  Fox'..., 217 

CHAPTER  XXVm. 

Drifting  ahout  Outlet  of  Channel. — Effort  to  communicate  with  British 
Vessels.  —  Spontaneous  Combustion.  —  Shore  inaccessible.  —  An  Ice 
Tramp. — Wintery  Signs. — Winter  Arrangements. — Leopold's  Island. — 
The  Daylight 225 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Continued  Drift. — Lancaster  Sound. — Topography  of  Ice  Fields. — A  Break- 
up.— Sir  John  Franklin. — Aurora. — \  Crisis. — The  Rescue  deserted. — 
Anecdote  of  an  Officer. — Drill  on  the  Ice. — Mr.  Griffin. — .Vpproaching 
Croker's  Bay 239 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

The  Cold. — Frozen  Stores. — Ices. — A  Walk. — Freezing  to  Death. — Cos- 
tume     257 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Continued  Drift.— Off  Croker's  Bay.— Pale  Faces.— The  Solstice.— Utter 
Darkness. — Christmas,  Theatre,  and  Gifts. — Scurvy. — Traces  and  Prog- 
ress of  returning  Light 265 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Continued  Drift. — New  Year. — Walks  renewed. — Eighth  of  January- 
Near  (]ape  Oshom. — Approaching  Baffin's  Bay. — Commotion  of  the  Ice. 
— Critical  Situation  of  the  Vessels 275 


i 


J 


X  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Page 
'.'(intinucd  Drift.  —  Preparation  for  Contingcncios.  —  Results  of  Intonse 
Pressure. — Inside  of  Uaffin's  Bay. — Effects  of  Darkness. — leo  Masses. — 
Declining  Health  of  ("rews. — Morale  of  Officers  aiut  Men. — Aijproaeh  of 
Day.  —  Sunrise,  Noon,  and  Sunset  in  one. — El  rcgrcsado  del  Sd. — 
Theatre 28:) 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Continued  Drift. — Extreme  Cold. — Exjdosions. — Meteors  — Refraction. — 
The  Area  of  Drift. — Routine  Life. — Perspiration  at — 42". — \Vashinj;ton's 
13irtli-day — Cold  Amusements. — The  Scurvy. — An  Insect^ — Our  two 
Cooks. — Our  lowest  Temperature. — Hygienic  Resources 297 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
Meteors. — Scintillation  of  Planets. — Auroras. — Day  Auroras 312 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

The  Rescue  in  her  Ice  Dock. — Treatment  of  Scurvy. — Imagination. — 
Progress  of  Disease. — Meteors,  Spicula;,  Parhelion. — Imperfect  Observa- 
tions.—Rate  of  Drift  —Water.— Frost  Smoke 321 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Snow  Drifts  —The  open  Water. — Ice  Voices. — Seal  Stalking. — Ice  Com- 
motions.— Narwhals  at  Play — State  of  the  Ice  Pack. — An  Excursion  — 
The  Narwhals  again — Changed  Phase  of  the  Ice 33 1 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

April — Thawing. — Measures  of  Heat. — Thermometrical  Fallacies. — Clear 
Water. — Endosmosis. — Salting  tlie  Ice. — Put  out  Cabin  Lamps. — Sur- 
gical Skill  of  a  Bear :  his  Escape  :   his  Instincts 345 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

House-cleaning. — The  Half-deck. — Progress  of  the  Season. — Somateria. 
—Narwhals  releasing  themselves.  —  Noises  of  Narwhal  and  white 
^V^lalt. — May-day. — Sleeplessness. — Snow-blindness 354 

CHAPTER  XL. 

Trymg  to  cut  out. — Scurvy. — Costume,  Skill  in  Tailoring. — Birds — Land, 
Cape  Searle. — (Uuulition  of  the  Advance. — Ineflectual  Attempt  to  launch 
lier — '  Y"  Arctic  Voyager?"'  _."  the  olden  Time 362 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

(Jape  Walsingham. — Mount  Raleigh. — Rate  of  Drift  increasing. — Refrac- 
tion, an  Es(|uimaux  ! — Bear  killed  by  the  Rescues. — A  Tide. — The 
Seals  :  their  Habits. — Infdtration  of  Salt  Water  through  the  Ice. — Sum- 
mary of  May 371 


I 


I. 


CONTENTS. 


XI 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

Pagi! 
The   Ice. — Its   Geological  Analogies — Its  Progress  of  Formation,   its 

Changes,  Decay,  Destruction. — Apparent  Causes 381 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 

June  — The  Break-up. — The  Rescue  Free — The  Advance  and  her  Camel. 
—Rolling  Ice. — Tlie  Calves. — State  of  the  Ice  after  the  Break-up 39() 

CHAP  PER  XLIV. 

Our  Floe — Efforts  for  Release — Remembrancers  on  the  Ice — Partial 
Disengagement. — Release. — Liquid  ^^'ater.— .Magnificent  Floe 404 

CHAPTER  XLV. 
Fantastic  Forms  of  Ice — Explanation — Archipelago  of  Bergs.— For  Wel- 
lington Channel  again! — The  Sukkertoppen — (Condition  of  the  Settle- 
ment.—  Recruiting.  —  Godhavcn.  —  Architectural  Bergs^ — In  tlie  Ice 
again. — Seal  Hunts. — Habits  of  the  Seal. — A  Lee  Ice  Shore. — Incrusted 
Bergy. — Esquimaux. — Unas  and  Company. — Arrival  at  Proven 410 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

Proven. — The  Hosky  House  of  Ciistiansen :  its  Furniture  — Employ- 
ments and  Habits  of  Inmates. — Fourth  of  July. — Visits  from  the  Jane 
O'Boness  and  Pacific 423 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

Uppernavik. — The  Governor's  Family — Petersen. — Bright  Atmosphere 
and  clear  Water.— Baffm's  Islands. — Gathering  Duck  Eggfi. — The  Ei- 
der :  their  Nests,  Habits,  and  EnemicK. — The  M'Lellan. — The  Whaling 
Fleet. — The  Prince  Albert,  M.  Bellot,  and  Mr.  Kennedy. — Picturesque 
Bergs. — Echoes. — Adventure  in  the  Skreed — Esquimaux  Dogs. — Starv- 
ing Colony. — Training  and  Employment  of  Dogs 431 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

The  Arctic  Glaciers. — Mcrs  de  Glace :  their  Height,  Color,  Configuration, 
Structure,  Movement. — Curvature  of  Ice. — Primary  Forms  of  Bergs. — 
Cluinges  and  secondary  Forms, — Studded  and  imbedded  Bergs — Crys- 
talludromcs. — Disintegrated  Bergs. — Effects  on  Soundings 44(> 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 
March  and  Collision  of  the  Bergs. —Almost  a  Nip. — The  Season  going  — 
"  Good-liy  to  the  Albert." — (^risis  approaching — Bergs  moving — Drilling 
Ice  Beach. — Procession — Berg  Fractures. — The  Opening. — The  Escape  460 

CHAPTER  L. 

Uppernavik — Governor's  Mansion. — The  Feast  of  Radishes. — Tlic  Ka- 
yack,  its  Form  and  Construction.— Esquimaux  Implements  of  the  Hunt. 
— Uses  of  the  Kayack — Feats  of  the  Kayackers. — Hazards — Involunta- 
ry Expatriation. — Conclusion 47'J 

Appendix 489 


i 


: 


PERSONAL  NARRATIVE. 


CHAPTER  I. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


The  region  which  is  known  on  our  maps  as  the 
Arctic  Ocean  is  inclosed  between  the  northern  shores 
of  Asia,  Europe,  and  America.  It  has  an  area  of 
about  four  and  a  half  millions  of  square  miles :  its 
tributary  waters  exceed  those  of  the  Western  Atlan- 
tic from  Hudson's  Bay  to  the  Caribbean ;  and  it  girds 
the  Pole  with  an  ice-locked  coast  of  nearly  three  thou- 
sand marine  leagues :  it  is  a  mysterious  sea,  that  has 
bafHed  for  centuries  the  research  of  navigators.  One 
of  the  more  recent  attempts  to  penetrate  its  recesses 
will  form  the  subject  of  this  volume. 

About  the  year  1816,  the  notion  of  a  northwestern 
passage,  which  had  fallen  for  a  time  into  the  same 
category  with  the  El  Dorado  and  the  Cathay  of  a 
less  practical  era,  began  to  find  favor  with  the  Brit- 
ish government.  The  spirit  of  private  enterprise 
took  the  same  direction.  Year  after  year  expedition 
followed  expedition,  under  commanders  of  tried  gal- 
lantry and  intelligence.  But  they  all  came  back 
without  traversing  the  forbidden  channel ;  bearing 
contributions,  indeed,  to  our  knowledge  of  its  charac 
ter  and  aspects,  but  accumulating  proofs  also  of  the 
hazards  of  exploring  even  its  barrier. 


14 


INTRODUCTORY. 


V 


I  I 


It  was  in  1844  that  Sir  John  Franklin  was  ap- 
pointed  to  the  charge  of  his  latest  Polar  expedition. 
His  first  visit  to  the  Arctic  regions  had  heen  in  1818, 
as  a  captain  in  Commodore  Buchan's  squadron ;  and 
after  this  had  returned  unsuccessful,  he  had  headed 
that  most  fearful  of  all  the  overland  journeys  of  our 
period,  tlie  descent  to  the  mouth  of  the  Coppermine 
River.  Still  later,  in  1825,  he  had  gone  hack  to  the 
same  field  of  toil,  and  had  delineated,  in  conjunction 
with  Sir  John  Richardson,  the  more  western  portions 
of  Arctic  America. 

No  officer  could  have  heen  found  in  the  marine  of 
any  country  who  combined  more  admirable  qualifica- 
tions for  the  duties  of  an  explorer.  To  the  resolute 
enterprise  and  powers  of  endurance,  which  his  former 
expeditions  had  tested  so  severely,  Sir  John  Franklin 
united  many  delightful  traits  of  character.  With  an 
enthusiasm  almost  boyish,  he  had  a  spirit  of  large 
but  fearless  forecast,  and  a  sensitive  kindness  of  heart 
that  commiserated  every  one  but  himself.  He  is  re- 
membered to  this  day  among  the  Indians  of  North 
America,  as  "  the  great  chief  who  would  not  kill  a 
mosquito." 

His  vessels,  the  Erebus  and  Terror,  were  soon  fit- 
ted for  sea;  and  on  the  25th  of  May,  1845,  he  weigh- 
ed anchor,  with  a  picked  crew,  and  as  noble  a  band 
of  officers  as  ever  volunteered  for  a  service  of  peril. 
They  were  met  by  a  whaler  on  the  26th  of  July  fol- 
lowing, in  the  upper  waters  of  Baffin's  Bay,  Tnoored 
to  an  iceberg,  and  waiting  for  an  opening  in  "  the 
pack."     They  have  not  been  seen  since. 

When  the  year  1848  had  arrived  without  any  tid- 
ings of  this  gallant  party.  Great  Britain  dispatched 
three  separate  expeditions  to  reclaim  them.     These 


INTRODUCTORY. 


Id 


were  well  devised ;  but  peculiar  drawbacks  seemed 
to  attend  their  efforts,  and  before  the  beginning  of 
1850  they  had  all  abandoned  the  search,  almost  with- 
out attaining  the  first  threshold  of  inquiry. 

Their  failure  aroused  every  where  the  generous 
sympathies  of  men.  Science  felt  for  its  votaries,  hu- 
manity mourned  its  fellows,  and  an  impulse,  holier 
and  more  energetic  than  either,  invoked  a  crusade 
of  rescue.  That  admirable  woman,  the  wife  of  Sir 
John  Franklin,  not  content  with  stimulating  the  re- 
newed efforts  of  her  own  countrymen,  claimed  the 
co-operation  of  the  world.  In  letters  to  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  full  of  the  eloquence  of  feeling, 
she  called  on  us,  as  a  "  kindred  people,  to  join  heart 
and  hand  in  the  enterprise  of  snatching  the  lost  navi- 
gators from  a  dreary  grave." 

The  delays  incident  to  much  of  our  national  legis- 
lation menaced  the  defeat  of  her  appeal.  The  bill 
making  appropriations  for  the  outfit  of  an  expedition 
lingered  on  its  passage,  and  the  season  for  commenc- 
ing operations  had  nearly  gone  by.  At  this  juncture, 
a  noble-spirited  merchant  of  New  York,  of  whom  as 
an  American  and  a  man  I  can  hardly  trust  myself  to 
speak,  fitted  out  two  of  his  own  vessels,  and  proffered 
them  gratuitously  to  the  government.  Thus  prompt- 
ed by  the  munificent  liberality  of  Mr.  Grinnell,  Con- 
gress hastened  to  take  the  expedition  under  its  charge, 
and  authorized  the  president  to  detail  from  the  navy 
such  necessary  officers  and  seamen  as  might  be  will- 
ing to  engage  in  it. 

Though  I  accompanied  this  expedition  as  its  sen- 
ior medical  officer,  I  had  no  claim  to  be  considered 
as  its  historian.  Such  a  province  belonged  strictly  to 
our  commander;  but  he  having  declined  making  any 


16 


INTRODUCTORY. 


other  than  an  official  report,  I  have  heen  invited  to 
prepare  a  history  of  the  cruise,  under  the  form  of  a 
personal  nanative.  I  had  promised  my  brother  at 
parting,  that  I  would  keep  a  journal,  to  furnish  topics, 
perhaps,  for  a  fireside  conversation ;  and  I  have  ♦•hosen 
to  draw  most  of  my  materials  from  this  record.  I 
might  have  done  more  wisely,  if  I  had  been  content 
to  substitute  sometimes  the  educated  opinions  of  oth- 
ers for  those  which  impressed  me  at  the  moment. 
My  apology  must  be,  that  I  do  not  profess  to  be  ac- 
curate, but  truthful. 


♦ 


« 


I 


CHART 

Kxliihiliiiu  liio  I't'i't'iil  <li.s(*nv«>n«>s 

*  ARCTIC    REGIONS 

nWi4'ftt',t  hv  I'inix.  A.Srhoti ,  /:.stf..r.  .S.ifhi.sl  SuirnJhuii  th, 
>ni,l  ntiitnhilx  ,ltin>xih-tl  with  /.nut.  Mtiinr. I ' .V  //»• 
In  K..I.IIK  \\\\'V.\.V\St)..i,>mnnin,trrt>rr.  .V.  tirii 

100 

91 


^T  HOGARTH 


«     iturr/  S  S  -4      Xo*** 


0      A       R       R   ^ 


'r^p^: 


SOMERSET 


'I'll  fiiir/ui//f  y,v. 


CHART 

i'4  llu'  ri'roiil  «lisr«iv«»n«'s  in  I  lie 

RCTIC    REGIONS 

f.,r..S.i'im.\l  .V///T/; I ■.//•/ w/  ///<  liitf.sl  Em/h'xh  /nihliinlioiix. 
'^nl  with  Unit.  Moiiiy,  I '  V  Ihilimfrtift/iir  lUiirtiu , 
M}.,i  nnnnintiltT  nl'  I'.S.  lirinntf/  Krfttilitinn  . 


■"7> 


9'.  HOGAHTH 


L-aoi 


MMIL10N  I 


*      •  V 


u  „;   C  H  A  N  N  (  ■»      ^'^G  ,"*\ 


^1  X 


B      A      R      R   *  0      u, 


,o-'»''     ■--'^'■^        /"  .„,n,        S        T        R       *^ 


( 


NORTH 
SOMERSET 


orTft 


•••■''         "^^  \ 


o  c  K 


B   O   B  W 


\-  ^ 


t*   O 


i'l 


ea 


La.  i L.- 


"  10  "  10  "10    "w  *  itb     00     fo  ■  oo     "      -- ' 


SCALt  OF   STATUTE.  MILES 
to    leo 


1*0  160  xitt"  '  100 


Ti>  t'llir  Ihlifr  />'y. 


9 


t 


%^: 


\ 


'"•^"ti 


>^l 


CHAPTER  II. 


*.!» 


-,1 


72 


On  the  12th  of  May,  while  bathing  in  the  tepid 
waters  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  I  received  one  of  those 
courteous  little  epistles  from  Washington  which  the 
electric  telegraph  has  made  so  familiar  to  naval  offi- 
cers.  It  detached  me  from  the  coast  survey,  and  or- 
dered me  to  "  proceed  forthwith  to  New  York,  for  duty 
upon  the  Arctic  Expedition." 

Seven  and  a  half  days  later,  I  had  accomplished  my 
overland  journey  of  thirteen  hundred  miles,  and  in 
forty  hours  more  our  squadron  was  beyond  the  limits 
of  the  United  States :  the  Department  had  calculated 
my  traveling  time  to  a  nicety. 

During  the  fraction  of  a  day  that  was  left  me  at 
^f ew  York,  I  strove  assiduously  to  secure  a  few  imple- 
ments for  scientific  observation,  as  well  as  to  get  to- 
gether the  elements  of  an  Arctic  wardrobe.  I  had,  of 
course,  the  zealous  aid  of  Mr.  Grinnell  in  these  hurried 

B 


1  '•• 


i 


\ 


18 


VESSELS     AT    ANCHOR 


arrangements ;  but  I  could  not  help  being  struck  with 
the  universal  sympathy  displayed  toward  our  expedi- 
tion. From  the  ladies  who  busied  themselves  in  seal- 
ing up  air-tight  packages  of  fruit-cakes,  to  the  mana- 
gers of  the  Astor  House,  who  insisted  that  their  hotel 
should  be  the  free  head-quarters  of  our  party,  it  was 
one  continued  round  of  proffered  services.  I  should 
have  a  long  list  of  citizens  to  thank  if  I  were  allowed 
to  name  them  on  these  pages. 

It  was  not,  perhaps,  to  be  expected  that  an  expedi- 
tion equipped  so  hastily  as  ours,  and  with  one  engross- 
ing object,  should  have  facilities  for  observing  very 
accurately,  or  go  out  of  its  way  to  find  matters  for  cu- 
rious research.  But  even  the  routine  of  a  national 
ship  might,  I  was  confident,  allow  us  to  gather  some- 
thing for  the  stock  of  general  knowledge.  With  the 
assistance  of  Professor  Loomis,  I  collected  as  I  could 
some  simple  instruments  for  thermal  and  magnetic  reg- 
istration, which  would  have  been  of  use  if  they  had 
found  their  way  on  board.  A  very  few  books  for  the 
dark  hours  of  winter,  and  a  stock  of  coarse  woolen 
clothing,  re-enforced  by  a  magnificent  robe  of  wolf- 
skins, that  had  wandered  down  to  me  from  the  snow- 
drifts of  Utah,  constituted  my  entire  outfit ;  and  with 
these  I  made  my  report  to  Commodore  Salter  at  the 
Brooklyn  Navy  Yard. 

Almost  within  the  shadow  of  the  line-of-battle  ship 
North  Carolina,  their  hulls  completely  hidden  beneath 
a  projecting  wharf,  were  two  little  hermaphrodite  brigs. 
Their  spars  had  no  man-of-war  trigness ;  their  decks 
were  choked  with  half-stowed  cargo ;  and  for  size,  I 
felt  as  if  I  could  straddle  from  the  main  hatch  to  the 
bulwarks. 

At  this  first  sight  of  the  Grinnell  Expedition,  I  con- 


.1 


IN    NEW    YORK    HARBOR. 


19 


^ 


fess  that  the  fastidious  experience  of  naval  life  on 
board  frigates  and  corvettes  made  me  look  down  on 
these  humble  vessels.  They  seemed  to  me  more  like 
a  couple  of  coasting  schooners  than  a  national  squad- 
ron bound  for  a  perilous  and  distant  sea.  Many  a 
time  afterward  I  recalled  the  short-sighted  ignorance 
of  these  first  impressions,  when  some  rude  encounter 
with  the  ice  made  comfort  and  dignity  very  secondary 
thoughts. 

The  "Advance,"  my  immediate  home,  had  been  orig- 
inally intended  for  the  transport  of  machinery.  Her 
timbers  were  heavily  moulded,  and  her  fastenings  of 
the  most  careful  sort.  She  was  fifty-three  tons  larger 
than  her  consort,  the  "  Rescue ;"  yet  both  together 
barely  equaled  two  hundred  and  thirty-five  tons. 

To  navigate  an  ice-bound  sea,  speed,  though  import- 
ant, is  much  less  so  than  strength.  Extreme  power 
of  resistance  to  pressure  must  be  combined  with  facil- 
ity of  handling,  adequate  stowage,  and  a  solidity  of 
frame  that  may  encounter  sudden  concussions  fearless- 
ly ;  and  it  seemed  to  both  Mr.  Grinnell  and  Lieutenant 
De  Haven  that  these  qualities  might  be  best  embodi- 
ed in  such  small  vessels  as  the  Advance  and  Rescue. 
It  was,  indeed,  something  like  a  return  to  the  dimen- 
sions of  our  predecessors  of  the  olden  time ;  for  the 
three  vessels  of  Frobisher  summed  up  only  seventy- 
five  tons,  and  Baffin's  largest  was  ten  tons  less  in  bur- 
den than  the  Rescue.  As  the  vessels  of  our  expedition 
were  more  thoroughly  adapted,  perhaps,  for  this  dan- 
gerous service  than  any  that  had  been  fitted  out  be- 
fore for  the  Arctic  Seas,  I  will  describe  them  in  de- 
tail. 

Commencing  with  the  outside :  the  hull  was  liter- 
ally  double,  a  brig  within  a  brig.    An  outer  sheathing 


.     ', 


f 


20 


VESSELS    AT     ANCHOR 


of  two  and  a  half  inch  oak  was  covered  with  a  sec- 
ond of  the  same  material ;  and  strips  of  heavy  sheet- 
iron  extended  from  the  bows  to  the  beam,  as  a  shield 
against  the  cutting  action  of  the  new  ice.  The  decks 
were  double,  made  water-tight  by  a  packing  of  tarred 
felt  between  them.  The  entire  interior  was  lined, 
ceiled,  with  cork;  which,  independently  of  its  low 
conducting  power,  was  a  valuable  protection  against 
the  condensing  moisture,  one  of  the  greatest  evils  of 
the  polar  climate. 

The  strengthening  of  her  skeleton,  her  wooden 
frame-work,  was  admirable.  Forward,  from  kelson 
to  deck,  was  a  mass  of  solid  timber,  clamped  and 
dove-tailed  with  nautical  wisdom,  for  seven  feet  from 
the  cutwater ;  so  that  we  could  spare  a  foot  or  two  of 
our  bows  without  springing  a  leak.  To  prevent  the 
ice  from  forcing  in  her  sides,  she  was  built  with  an 
extra  set  of  beams  running  athwart  her  length  at  in- 
tervals of  four  feet,  and  so  arranged  as  to  ship  and  un- 
ship at  pleasure.  From  the  Samson-posts,  strong  ra- 
diating timbers,  called  shores,  diverged  in  every  di- 
rection ;  and  oaken  knees,  hanging  and  oblique,  were 
added  wherever  space  permitted. 

Looking  forward  to  the  hampering  ice  fields,  our 
rudder  was  so  constructed  that  it  could  be  taken  on 
board  and  replaced  again  in  less  than  four  minutes. 
Our  winch,  capstan,  and  patent  windlass  were  of  the 
best  and  newest  construction. 

A  little  hurricane-house  amidships  contained  the 
one  galley  that  cooked  for  all  hands,  and  a  large  fun- 
nel of  galvanized  iron  was  connected  with  the  chim- 
ney, in  such  a  way  that  the  heat  circulating  round  it 
might  supply  us  with  melted  snow.  An  armorer's 
forge,  a  full  set  of  ice  anchors,  a  couple  of  well-built 


\ 


IN    NEW    YORK    HARBOR. 


21 


whale-boats,  and  three  anthracite  stoves,  made  part  of 
the  outfit. 

In  a  word,  every  thing  ahout  the  two  vessels  bore 
the  marks  of  intelligent  foresight  and  unsparing  ex- 
penditure. 

With  the  governmental  arrangements  we  were  not 
so  fortunate.  It  seems  to  be  inseparable  from  national 
as  well  as  corporate  administration,  that  it  is  less  ef- 
fective than  the  action  of  individuals.  Neither  our 
own  navy  nor  that  of  Great  Britain  attains  results  so 
cheaply,  promptly,  or  well,  as  the  commercial  marine ; 
and  it  is  a  fact,  only  expressed  from  a  sad  conviction 
of  its  truth,  that,  in  spite  of  the  disciplined  intelligence 
of  many  of  our  officers,  the  naval  service  of  the  public 
is  regarded  among  our  merchant  brethren,  and  by  the 
community  they  belong  to,  as  non-progressive  and  old- 
fashioned  in  all  that  admits  of  comparison  between 
the  two.  They  excel  us  in  equipment,  and  speed, 
and  substantial  economy. 

I  can  not,  then,  say  much  in  praise  of  either  the  dis- 
patch or  excellence  of  our  strictly  naval  equipment. 
There  were  other  things,  besides  the  diminutive  size 
of  our  brigs,  to  remind  one  of  the  days  of  the  ancient 
mariners.  Some  that  were  matters  of  serious  vexation 
at  the  moment  may  be  forgotten  now,  or  remembered 
with  a  smile.  Our  heterogeneous  collection  of  obso- 
lete old  carbines,  with  the  impracticable  ball-cartridges 
that  accompanied  them,  gave  us  many  a  laugh  before 
we  got  home.  Thanks  to  the  incessant  labors  of  our 
commander,  and  the  exhaustless  liberality  of  Mr.  Grin- 
nell,  most  of  our  deficiencies  were  made  up,  and  we 
effected  our  departure  in  time  for  the  navigation  of 
Baffin's  Bay. 

Our  crews  consisted  of  man-of-war's-men  of  various 


VESSELS    AT    ANCHOR 


^ 


climes  and  habitudes,  with  constitutions  most  of  them 
impaired  by  disease,  or  temporarily  broken  by  the  ex- 
cesses of  shore  life.  But  this  original  defect  of  mate- 
rial was  in  a  great  degree  counteracted  by  the  strict 
and  judicious  discipline  of  our  executive  officers.  The 
crews  proved  in  the  end  willing  and  reliable ;  and,  in 
the  midst  of  trials  which  would  have  tested  men  of 
more  pretension,  were  never  found  to  waver.  I  re- 
cord, in  the  commencement  of  this  narrative,  how 
much  respect  and  kindly  feeling  I,  as  one  of  their  lit- 
tle body,  entertain  for  their  essential  contribution  to 
the  ends  of  the  expedition. 

Of  my  brother  officers  I  can  not  say  a  word.  I  am 
so  intimately  bound  to  them  by  the  kindly  and  un- 
broken associations  of  friend  and  mess-mate,  that  I 
shrink  from  any  other  mention  ot  them  than  such  as 
my  narrative  requires.  All  told,  our  little  corps  of 
officers  numbered  four  for  each  ship,  including  that 
non-effective  limb,  the  doctor.  Our  two  crews,  with 
the  aid  of  a  cook  and  steward,  counted  twelve  and 
thirteen ;  giving  a  total  of  but  thirty-three,  whose  dis- 
tribution and  positions  will  be  seen  in  the  accompa- 
nying list. 


ADVANCE. 

Office  s. 

Lieutenant  Commanding — Edwin  J.  De  Haven,  commanding  the  expedition. 
Passed  Midshipman — William  H.  Miirdaugh,  acting  master  and  first  officer. 
Midshipman — William  I.  Lovell,  second  officer. 

E.  K.  Kane,  M.D.,  passed  assistant  surgeon. 


Crew. 

Willi  im  Morton,  Henry  De  Roque,  John  Blinn,  Gibson  Caruthers,  Thomas 
Dunning,  William  West,  Charles  Berry,  Louis  Costa,  William  Holmes,  Edward 
Wilson,  William  Benson,  Edward  C.  Delano,  James  Smith. 


IN    NEW    YOkK    HARBOR.  23 

RESCUE. 
Officers. 

Ber^amin  VreeUnd,  M.D.,  asistan,  surgeon 

Cr«M). 

L.SXlh'^Be^SntSL  C  "bI^'d  "^f  r '  "'"^"  ""-•  '^■"- 
S.e»art,  Alexander  Daly!  H  J  WUe  Ixo^aUa  ■"""'  ■'°'"'°°'  "^ 


CHAPTER  III. 


About  one  o'clock  on  the  2 2d  of  May,  the  asthmatic 
old  steam-tug  that  was  to  be  our  escort  to  the  sea 
moved  slowly  off.  Our  adieux  from  the  Navy  Yard 
were  silent  enough.  We  cost  our  country  no  compli- 
mentary gunpowder;  and  it  was  not  until  we  got 
abreast  of  the  city  that  the  crowded  wharves  and 
shipping  showed  how  much  that  bigger  community 
sympathized  with  our  undertaking.  Cheers  and  hur- 
ras followed  us  till  we  had  passed  the  Battery,  and 
the  ferry-boats  and  steamers  came  out  of  their  track 
to  salute  us  in  the  bay. 

The  sky  was  overcast  before  we  lost  sight  of  the 
spire  of  old  Trinity ;  and  by  evening  it  had  clouded 
over  so  rapidly,  that  it  was  evident  we  had  to  look  for 
a  dirty  night  outside.  Off  Sandy  Hook  .'  h :;  wind  fresh- 
ened,  and  the  sea  grew  so  rough,  that  we  were  forced 
to  part  abruptly  from  the  friends  who  had  kept  is 


THE    GOOD-BY. 


Sff 


I 


company.  We  were  eating  and  drinking  in  our  little 
cabin,  when  the  summons  came  for  them  to  hurry  up 
instantly  and  leap  aboard  the  boat.  The  same  heavy 
squall  which  made  us  cast  loose  so  suddenly  the  cable 
of  the  steamer  gathered  upon  us  the  night  and  the 
storm  together ;  and  in  a  few  minutes  our  transition 
was  complete,  from  harbor  life  and  home  associations 
to  the  discomforts  and  hardships  of  our  career. 

The  difference  struck  me,  and  not  quite  pleasantly, 
as  I  climbed  over  straw  and  rubbish  into  the  little  pe- 
culium  which  was  to  be  my  resting-place  for  so  long 
a  time.  The  cabin,  which  made  the  homestead  of  four 
human  beings,  was  somewhat  less  in  dimensions  than 
a  penitentiary  cell.  There  was  just  room  enough  for 
two  berths  of  six  feet  each  on  a  side ;  and  the  area 
between,  which  is  known  to  naval  men  as  "  the  coun- 
try," seemed  completely  filled  up  with  the  hinged  ta- 
ble, the  four  camp-stools,  and  the  lockers.  A  hanging 
lamp,  that  creaked  uneasily  on  its  "  gimbals,"  illus- 
trated through  the  mist  some  long  rows  of  crockery 
shelves  and  the  dripping  step-ladder  that  led  directly 
from  the  wet  deck  above.  Every  thing  spoke  of  cheer- 
less discomfort  and  narrow  restraint. 

By  the  next  day  the  storm  had  abated.  We  were 
out  of  sight  of  land,  but  had  not  yet  parted  with  the 
last  of  our  well-wishers.  A  beautiful  pilot-boat,  the 
Washington,  with  Mr.  Grinnell  and  his  sons  on  board, 
continued  to  bear  us  company.  But  on  the  25th  we 
saw  the  white  flag  hoisted  as  the  signal  of  farewell. 
We  closed  up  our  letters  and  took  them  aboard,  drank 
healths,  shook  hands — and  the  wind  being  fair,  were 
out  of  sight  of  the  schooner  before  evening. 

I  now  began,  with  an  instinct  of  future  exigencies, 
to  fortify  my  retreat.     The  only  spot  I  could  call  my 


^^AfciJHbi^jjMHI 


p.jg,.--^- 


26 


CREATURE     COMFORTS. 


own  was  the  berth  I  have  spoken  of  before.  It  was 
a  sort  of  bunk — a  right-angled  excavation,  of  six  feet 
by  two  feet  eight  in  horizontal  dimensions,  let  into 
the  side  of  the  vessel,  with  a  height  of  something  less 
than  a  yard.  My  first  care  was  to  keep  water  out,  my 
second  to  make  it  warm.  A  bundle  of  tacks,  and  a 
few  yards  of  India-rubber  cloth,  soon  made  me  an  im- 
penetrable casing  over  the  entire  wood- work.  Upon 
this  were  laid  my  Mormon  wolf-skin  and  a  somewhat 
ostentatious  Astracan  fur  cloak,  a  relic  of  former  travel. 
Two  little  wooden  shelves  held  my  scanty  library ;  a 
third  supported  a  reading  lamp,  or,  upon  occasion,  a 
Berzelius'  argand,  to  be  lighted  when  the  dampness 
made  an  increase  of  heat  necessary.  My  watch  ticked 
from  its  particular  nail,  and  a  more  noiseless  monitor, 
my  thermometer,  occupied  another.  My  ink-bottle 
was  suspended,  pendulum  fashion,  from  a  hook,  and  to 
one  long  string  was  fastened,  like  the  ladle  of  a  street- 
pump,  my  entire  toilet,  a  tooth-brush,  a  comb,  and  a 
hair-brush. 

Now,  when  all  these  distributions  had  been  happily 
accomplished,  and  I  crawled  in  from  the  wet,  and  cold, 
and  disorder  of  without,  through  a  slit  in  the  India- 
rubber  cloth,  to  the  very  centre  of  my  complicated  re- 
sources, it  would  be  hard  for  any  one  to  realize  the 
quantity  of  comfort  which  I  felt  I  had  manufactured. 
My  lamp  burned  brightly ;  little  or  no  water  distilled 
from  the  roof;  my  furs  warmed  me  into  satisfaction; 
and  I  realized  that  I  was  sweating  myself  out  of  my 
preliminary  cold,  and  could  temper  down  at  pleasure 
the  abruptness  of  my  acclimation. 

From  this  time  I  began  my  journal.  At  first  its 
entries  were  little  else  than  a  selfish  record  of  personal 
discomforts.    It  was  less  than  a  fortnight  since  I  was 


OFF    NEWFOUNDLAND. 


27 


ie 


re 

;s 
l1 

is 


under  the  sky  of  Florida,  looking  out  on  the  live  oak 
with  its  bearded  moss,  and  breathing  the  magnolia. 
Comfortable  as  my  bunk  was,  compared  with  the  deck, 
I  was  conscious  that,  on  the  whole,  I  had  not  bettered 
my  quarters. 

But  with  the  7th  of  June  came  fine,  bright,  bracing 
weather.  We  were  off"  Newfoundland,  getting  along 
well  over  a  smooth  sea.  We  had  been  looking  at  the 
low  hills  near  Cape  Race,  when,  about  noon,  a  great 
mass  of  whiteness  was  seen  floating  in  the  sunshine. 
It  was  our  first  iceberg.  It  was  in  shape  an  oblong 
cube,  and  about  twice  as  large  as  Girard  College.  Its 
color  v.'cis  an  unmixed,  but  not  dazzling  white :  indeed, 
it  seemed  entirely  coated  with  snow  of  such  unsullied, 
unreflecting  purity,  that,  as  we  passed  within  a  hund- 
red yards  of  it,  not  a  glitter  reached  us.  It  reminded 
me  of  a  great  marble  monolith,  only  awaiting  the  chisel 
to  stand  out  in  peristyle  and  pediment  a  floating  Par- 
thenon. There  was  something  very  imposing  in  the 
impassive  tranquillity  with  which  it  received  the  lash- 
ings of  the  sea. 

The  next  day  we  were  off"  St.  John's,  surrounded  by 
bergs,  which  nearly  blockaded  the  harbor.  A  boat's 
crew  of  six  brawny  Saxon  men  rowed  out  nine  miles 
to  meet  us,  and  offer  their  services  as  pilots.  They 
were  disappointed  when  we  told  them  we  were  "  bound 
for  Greenland ;"  but  their  hearty  countenances  bright- 
ened into  a  glow  when  we  added,  "  in  search  of  Sir 
John  Franklin." 

We  ran  into  an  iceberg  the  night  after,  and  carried 
away  our  jib-boom  and  martingale:  it  was  our  first 
adventure  with  these  mountains  of  the  sea.  We 
thumped  against  it  for  a  few  seconds,  but  slid  off" 
smoothly  enough  into  open  water  afterward.     Two 


•9 


OFF    NEWFOUNDLAND. 


days  later,  we  met  a  scAoo/ of  fin-backed  whales,  great, 
crude,  wallowing  sea-hogs,  snorting  out  fountains  of 
white  spray,  and  tumbling,  porpoise  fashion,  one  over 
another  about  the  vessel.  My  journal  compares  them 
to  a  huge  old-fashioned  India-rubber  shoe. 


1 


\  < 


freat, 
IS  of 
over 
them 


4 

i 

} 

i 


i;;i 


ART 


AY 

\ '  ^l  rit;i**t   Sue*  i-x  . 
1lN  HANK. 


1 


,--- r 


-^:/.; 

; 


J:  3 


1 


■  T  £ 


\.i 


t*{ 


--,■«- 


THE   SUKKEBTOPPEN. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


We  were  now  drawing  near  to  Davis's  Straits,  and 
the  names  which  recorded  our  progress  upon  the  charts 
were  lull  of  Arctic  associations.  The  Meta  Incognita 
of  Frobisher  and  the  Cape  of  God's  Mercy  greeted  us 
from  the  American  coast :  Cape  Farewell  was  on  our 
starboard  quarter,  and  the  "  Land  of  Desolation"  nearly 
abeam. 

A  piece  of  drift-wood,  a  wanderer  from  the  region  of 
trees,  passed  us  on  its  northward  journey.  The  course 
of  this  drift-wood  illustrates  remarkably  the  benefi- 
cent adaptation  of  ocean  currents  to  the  wants  of 
man.  It  is  found  abundantly  on  the  lower  coasts 
of  Greenland,  and,  passing  round  them  from  the  At- 
lantic, floats  along  the  eastern  shore  of  Baffin's  Bay 
to  the  north,  in  opposition  to  the  general  tendency 
of  its  waters. 

The  great  counter-current,  which  in  the  North  At- 
lantic borders  the  Gulf  Stream,  flowing  from  the  north- 


\ 


w 


30 


DAVIS   S    STRAITS. 


east  to  the  southwest,  is  deflected  at  Cape  Farewell, 
and  carried  abruptly  along  the  west  coast  of  Greenland 
toward  the  north.  Such  is  the  observation  of  all  the 
Danish  settlers,  strikingly  confirmed  by  the  accumula- 
tions of  ice  on  the  southeastern  shores  of  the  Penin- 
sula. This  ice  is  evidently  from  the  Spitzbergen  Seas ; 
and  at  seasons  of  the  year  when  the  upper  waters  of 
Greenland  are  comparatively  unobstructed,  it  com- 
pletely fills  up  the  fiords  of  the  southeastern  coast. 
Thus  the  settlements  of  Baal's  River  and  Julianshaab 
are  for  months  of  the  summei  in  a  state  of  blockade, 
owing  to  the  inroads  of  the  ice-fields  from  the  south ; 
while  at  Holsteinberg  and  to  the  north  the  land  is  per- 
fectly accessible. 

The  drift-wood  is  at  first  entangled  with  these  frozen 
masses ;  but  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  it  contin- 
ues its  way  onward  long  after  the  ice  has  left  it.  At 
Egedesminde,  for  instance,  it  is  almost  a  staple  com- 
modity ;  though  in  the  Bay  of  Disco,  where  the  current 
is  controlled  by  local  causes,  it  is  found  only  in  some 
places.  Our  expedition  met  it  as  high  as  Storoe  Isl- 
and, in  latitude  71°. 

When  it  is  remembered  that  this  wood,  coming  from 
the  Atlantic  quarter,  is  the  offcast  of  the  great  Siberian 
and  American  rivers,  and  that  the  distant  bay  to  which 
it  travels  has  its  great  discharge  of  water  from  the 
north,  we  can  appreciate  the  importance  of  the  reflex 
current  in  supplying  these  destitute  shores  with  fuel 
and  timber. 

Our  enemies,  the  icebergs — for  we  had  not  yet 
learned  to  regard  them  as  friends — made  their  appear- 
ance again  on  the  16th.  One  of  them  was  an  irreg- 
ular quadrangle,  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long  in 
its  presenting  face.    Its  summit  reminded  me  of  the 


THE    ARCTIC    DAY. 


31 


crevasses  seen  in  the  Alpine  glaciers.  It  was  com- 
pletely cut  up  with  jagged  ridges  and  intervening 
hollows,  through  some  of  which  the  water  of  the  sur- 
face drainage  fell  in  little  cascades. 

The  night  had  now  left  us :  we  were  in  the  contin- 
uous sunlight  of  the  Arctic  summer.  I  copy  the  en- 
tries from  my  journal  of  the  17th. 

"We  are  just  'turning  in,'  that  is,  seeking  our  den 
for  sleep.  It  has  heen  a  long  day,  but  to  me  a  God- 
send, so  clear  and  fogless.  My  time-piece  points  to 
half  past  nine,  and  yet  the  sunshine  is  streaming  down 
the  little  hatchway. 

"Our  Arctic  day  has  commenced.  Last  night  we 
read  the  thermometer  without  a  lantern,  and  the 
binnacle  was  not  lighted  up.  To-day  the  sun  sets 
after  ten,'  to  rise  again  before  two ;  and  during  the 
bright  twilight  interval  he  will  dip  but  a  few  degrees 
below  the  horizon.  We  have  followed  him  for  some 
time  past  in  one  scarcely  varying  track  of  brightness. 
The  words  night  and  day  begin  to  puzzle  me,  as  I  rec- 
ognize the  arbitrary  character  of  the  hour  cycles  that 
have  borne  these  names.  Indeed,  I  miss  that  soothing 
tranquillizer,  the  dear  old  darkness,  and  can  hardly,  as 
I  give  way  to  sleep,  bid  the  mental  good-night  which 
travelers  like  to  send  from  their  darkened  pillows  to 
friends  at  home. 

"  Only  one  iceberg  was  seen  to-day.  The  sun  was 
behind  it,  his  low  rays  lighting  up  the  sea  with  crim- 
son, and  defining  the  black  shadow  of  the  berg  like  a 
silhouette.  While  we  were  watching  it,  one  of  those 
changes  of  equilibrium,  so  frequent  in  partially  sub- 
merged ice,  caused  it  first  to  tremble,  and  then  to  roll 
in  long  oscillating  curves.  At  the  same  moment,  myr- 
iads of  birds,  which  had  roosted  unseen  in  its  inhos- 


I 


I! 


n 


ZONES    OF    MIST. 


pitable  clefts,  rose  into  the  line  of  sunshine,  and  flew 
in  circles  round  their  unstable  resting-place." 

Our  little  vessel  pursued  her  way  without  drawback, 
heading,  as  nearly  as  the  wind  permitted,  for  our  ap- 
pointed rendezvous  with  tb^  Rescue.  The  zones  of 
discolored  sea,  which  we  met  upon  entering  Baffin's 
Bay,  still  continued,  thoagli  less  frequent  than  further 
to  the  south.  Their  color  varied  from  a  chocolate  to 
a  muddy  green,  and  it  seemed  as  if  their  general  di- 
rection was  governed  by  some  uniform  cause  not  di- 
rectly connected  with  superficial  currents.  Of  eight 
belts  which  I  noted,  five  had  a  marked  trend  from  the 
northeast  to  the  southwest.  It  struck  me  as  remark- 
able, too,  that  the  movements  of  the  acalephai  beneath 
the  surface  were  seldom  in  the  axis  of  the  stream. 
They  crossed  it  obliquely.  May  it  not  be  that  such 
belts  of  discoloration  as  are  visible  at  the  surface  are 
merely  protruding  ridges  of  great,  submerged  areas  ? 

My  meteorological  abstract  shows  for  this  period  a 
comfortless  alternation  of  fogs,  scanty  sunshine,  and 
drizzling  rain.  These  fogs  extended  generally  over  a 
considerable  surface,  and,  though  not  accompanied  by 
such  changes  of  wind  or  temperature  as  to  attract  no- 
tice, had  no  doubt  some  relation  to  the  fishing  shoals 
over  which  we  were  passing.  Sometimes,  however, 
we  entered  continuous  streams  of  mist,  not  extending 
higher  than  our  cross  trees,  and  emerged  from  them 
again  so  suddenly  as  to  make  me  ascribe  them  to  local 
refrigeration  induced  by  the  neighborhood  of  ice.  The 
effect  of  these  fogs  upon  the  diffusion  of  light  was  far 
from  pleasant.  Our  now  nominal  twi  light  reminded 
me  of  a  bright  glare,  subdued  by  a  ground  glass  screen: 
our  eyes  suffered  more  than  during  the  unobstructed 
sunshine. 


THE     SUKKERTOPPEN. 


33 


On  the  20th  an  unknown  schooner  came  within  the 
same  dome  of  mist  with  ourselves.  We  had  not  seen 
a  sail  since  leaving  Newfoundland,  and  the  sight 
pleased  us.  We  showed  our  colors,  but  the  little  craft 
declined  a  reciprocation. 

On  the  same  day,  jutting  up  above  the  misty  hori- 
zon, we  sighted  the  mountainous  coast  of  Greenland. 
It  was  a  bold  antiphrasis  that  gave  such  a  vernal  title 
to  this  birth-place  of  icebergs.  Old  Crantz,  the  quaint- 
est, and,  in  many  things,  the  most  exact  of  the  mis- 
sionary authorities,  says  that  it  got  the  name  from  the 
Norsemen,  because  it  was  greener  than  Iceland — a  poor 
compliment,  certainly,  to  the  land  of  the  Geysers ! 

We  first  made  the  coast  near  Sukkertoppen,  a  re- 
markable peak,  called  so,  perhaps,  because  its  form  is 
not  unlike  that  of  a  sugar-loaf,  perhaps  because  its 
top  is  whitened  with  the  snow.  Mountains  that  mark 
their  unbroken  profile  on  the  distant  sky  are  very  apt 
to  suggest  these  fanciful  remembrances  to  the  naviga- 
tor ;  and  it  is  probably  this  which  makes  their  names 
so  frequently  characteristic. 

This  peak  is  a  noted  landmark,  and  gives  its  name 
to  the  entire  district  it  overlooks.  Our  own  observa- 
tions confirm  those  of  Graah  and  Ross,  which  place  it 
in  latitude  65°  22'  north,  longitude  53°  05'  west.  It 
may  be  seen  under  ordinary  circumstances  many  miles 
out  to  sea. 

We  were  favored  in  our  view  of  the  Sukkertoppen. 
We  had  approached  it  through  an  atmosphere  of  fog ; 
and  when  the  morning  of  the  23d  gave  us  a  clear  sky, 
we  found  ourselves  close  upon  the  beach,  so  close  that 
we  could  see  the  white  surf  mingling  with  the  snow 
streaks.  A  more  rugged  and  inhospitable  region  never 
met  my  eye.    Its  unyielding  expression  differed  from 

C 


^g^^ 


34 


THE     SUKKERTOPPEN. 


any  that  belongs  to  the  recognized  desert,  the  Sahara, 
or  the  South  American  Arridas ;  for  in  these  tropical 
wastes  there  is  rarely  wanting  some  group  of  Euphor- 
bia or  stunted  Gum  Arabic  trees,  to  qualify  by  their 
contrast  the  general  barrenness.  It  was  startling  to 
see,  beneath  a  smiling  sun  and  upon  the  level  of  the 
all-fertilizing  sea,  an  entire  country  without  an  ap- 
parent trace  of  vegetable  life. 

The  hills  had  the  peculiar  configuration  that  be- 
longs to  the  metamorphic  rocks.  Their  summits  were 
gnarled  and  torn ;  and  in  the  immediate  foreground, 
some  gneissoid  spurs  of  lesser  elevation  were  so  round- 
ed as  to  resemble  gigantic  bowlders.  The  axis  of  the 
chain  seemed  to  incline  rudely  from  the  N.N.W.  to  the 
S.S.E.  Its  sides  were  nearly  destitute  of  those  minor 
valleys  that  characterize  the  more  recent  deposits. 
Yet,  even  at  fifteen  miles  distance,  I  could  remark  the 
clean  abrupt  edge  of  the  fractures,  which  creased  their 
otherwise  symmetrical  outline. 

Over  these  hills  the  snow  lay  in  patches,  occupy- 
ing principally  the  protected  and  dependent  grooves. 
But,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  escarped  faces,  too  pre- 
cipitous to  retain  it,  the  various  inclinations  of  the  sur- 
face appeared  to  be  covered  equally,  without  regard  to 
their  exposure  toward  different  points  of  the  compass. 
Far  off  to  the  south  and  east,  the  glacier  showed  its 
characteristic  pinnacle. 


i'' 


ENTKRINO  DISCO. 


CHAPTER  V. 


On  the  24th,  the  sun  did  not  pass  below  the  horizon. 
We  had  already  begun  to  realize  that  power  of  adap- 
tation to  a  new  state  of  things,  which  seems  to  be  a 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  man.  We  marked  our 
day  by  its  routine.  Though  the  temptation  to  avoid 
a  regular  bed-hour  was  sometimes  irresistible,  yet  sev- 
en bells  always  found  us  washing  by  turns  at  our  one 
tin  wash-basin :  at  eight  bells  we  breakfasted ;  at 
eight  again  we  called  to  grog;  two  hours  afterward 
we  met  at  dinner ;  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
we  came  with  laudable  regularity  to  our  salt  junk  and 
coffee. 

Our  daily  reckoning  kept  us  advised  of  the  recur- 
ring noonday,  the  meridian  starting-point  of  sea-life ; 
and  our  indefatigable  master  had  his  unvarying  hour 
for  winding  up  and  comparing  the  chronometers.  It 
is  hard  not  to  mark  the  regulated  steps  of  time,  where 
such  a  man-of-war  routine  prevails ;  and  I  can  scarce- 
ly understand  the  necessity  for  the  twenty-four  hours' 


IJ1 

I 

.i 


36 


DISCO. 


Ill 


registering  dial-plate,  which  Parry  and  others  carried 
with  them,  to  avert  the  disastrous  consequences  of  a 
twelve  hours'  skip  in  their  polar  reckonings. 

We  had  now  heen  a  month  and  a  day  out  from  New 
York.  Our  immediate  destination  was  the  Crown 
Prince  Islands,  more  generally  known  hy  the  misno- 
mer of  the  Whale  Fish.  This  little  group  is  situated 
in  the  Bay  of  Disco,  thirty  miles  south  of  the  island 
of  that  name  JIt  is  the  largest  of  three  similar  groups, 
and  seems  to  he  part  of  a  ledge  extending  from  the 
southern  cape  of  Disco  to  the  Bunke  Islands.  Sir 
Edward  Parry  surveyed  the  entrance  to  them  in  1821, 
and  determined  their  position  very  carefully ;  since 
which  time,  from  the  facilities  which  they  offer  for 
rating  chronometers,  they  have  hecome  an  established 
resort  for  whalers  and  expedition  ships.  Knowing 
nothing  of  their  character  or  resources,  we  had  looked 
forward  to  them  wiih  that  sort  of  expectation  which 
sea-tossed  men  attach  to  port.  We  were  not  sorry 
then,  when,  on  the  24th  of  June,  in  the  midst  of  the 
usual  combination  of  cold  rain  and  fogs,  we  sighted 
some  lov/  hilly  rocks,  about  which  the  sea-swallow 
and  kittiwake  were  whirling  in  endless  rounds. 

As  we  entered  the  narrow  passage  which  formed 
our  anchorage,  we  looked  in  vain  for  indications  of 
life.  Water- worn  gneiss,  intersected  by  huge  injec- 
tions of  feldspar,  made  up  the  entire  prospect.  To  the 
eye  every  thing  was  inorganic  ruggedness.  In  one 
or  two  places,  water  distilled  in  drops  over  the  rocks, 
and  found  its  way  to  the  sea ;  but  there  was  no  veg- 
etation to  define  its  course,  not  even  the  green  con- 
ferva, that  obscure  vitality  which  follows  water  at 
home.  It  was  only  after  landing  that  I  became  aware 
that  these  apparently  destitute  islands  contributed 


'^k. 


A     KAYACK. 


37 


n  one 
rocks, 
veg- 
con- 
er  at 
ware 
Ibuted 


their  part  to  the  varied  and  peculiar  flora  of  the  Arc- 
tic regions. 

The  entrance  to  the  anchorage  from  the  southwest 
is  between  two  islands,  and  the  harbor,  which  is  com- 
pletely sheltered  from  ice,  is  formed,  as  will  be  seen 
from  the  sketch,  by  the  conjunction  of  a  third.  On 
turning  the  corner,  we  suddenly  came  upon  a  wood- 
en store-house  for  oil  and  skins ;  and  opposite  to  it, 
a  clumsy-looking  collier,  moored  stem  and  stern  by 
hawsers  leading  to  rocks  on  either  side  of  the  channel. 
Soon  after,  we  were  boarded  by  Lieutenant  Power,  of 
the  British  navy,  and  from  him  we  learned  that  the 
clumsy  craft  was  the  Emma  Eugenia,  a  provision 
transport  chartered  by  the  Admiralty,  and  that  in  less 
than  a  week  she  would  take  our  letters  to  England. 

We  learned,  too,  that  the  British  relief  squadron 
under  Commodore  Austin  had  sailed  the  day  before 
for  the  regions  of  search.  They  had  left  England  on 
the  6th  of  May,  or  seventeen  days  before  our  own  de- 
parture from  New  York. 

"While  we  were  standing  upon  deck,  waiting  for 
the  boat  to  be  manned  which  was  to  take  us  to  the 
shore,  something  like  a  large  Newfoundland  dog  was 
seen  moving  rapidly  through  the  water.  As  it  ap- 
proached, we  could  see  a  horn-like  prolongation  bulg- 
ing from  its  chest,  and  every  now  and  then  a  queer 
movement,  as  of  two  flapping  wings,  which,  acting 
alternately  on  either  side,  seemed  to  urge  it  through 
the  water.  Almost  immediately  it  was  alongside  of 
us,  and  then  we  realized  what  was  the  much  talked- 
of  kayack  of  the  Greenlanders. 

It  was  a  canoe-shaped  frame- work,  carefully  and  en- 
tirely covered  with  tensely-stretched  seal-skins,  beau- 
tiful in  model,  and  graceful  as  the  nautilus,  to  which 


)     , 


ife 


38 


KAYACKS. 


it  has  been  compared.  With  the  exception  of  an  ellip- 
tical hole,  nearly  in  its  centre,  to  receive  its  occupant, 
it  was  both  air  and  water  tight.  Into  this  hole  was 
wedged  its  human  freight,  a  black-locked  Esquimaux, 
enveloped  in  an  undressed  seal-skin,  drawn  tightly 
around  the  head  and  wrists,  and  fastened,  where  it 
met  the  kayack,  about  an  elevated  rim  made  for  the 
purpose,  over  which  it  slipped  like  a  bladder  over  the 
lip  of  a  jar. 

The  length  of  the  kayack  was  about  eighteen  feet, 
tapering  fore  and  aft  to  an  absolute  point.  The  beam 
was  but  twenty-one  inches.  When  laden,  as  we  saw 
it,  the  top  or  deck  was  at  its  centre  but  two  inches 
by  measurement  above  the  water-line.  The  waves 
often  broke  completely  over  it.  A  double-bladed  oar, 
grasped  in  the  middle,  was  the  sole  propeller.  It  was 
wonderful  to  see  how  rapidly  the  will  of  the  kayacker 
communicated  itself  to  his  little  bark.  One  impulse 
seemed  to  control  both.  Indeed,  even  for  a  careful 
observer,  it  was  hard  to  say  where  the  boat  ended  or 
the  man  commenced ;  the  rider  seemed  one  with  his 
frail  craft,  an  amphibious  realization  of  the  centaur, 
or  a  practical  improvement  upon  the  merman. 

These  boats,  not  only  as  specimens  of  beautiful  na- 
val architecture,  but  from  their  controlling  influence 
upon  the  fortunes  of  their  owners,  became  to  me  sub- 
jects of  careful  study.  I  will  revert  to  them  at  an- 
other time.  As  we  rowed  to  the  shore,  crowds  of  them 
followed  us,  hanging  like  Mother  Carey's  chickens  in 
our  wake,  and  just  outside  the  sweep  of  our  oars. 

We  landed  at  a  small  cove  formed  by  two  protrud- 
ing masses  of  coarsely  granular  feldspar.  Some  forty 
odd  souls,  the  men,  women,  and  children  of  the  entire 
settlement,  received  us.     The  men  were  in  the  front 


:? 


!':! 


l—iWlWJUWHII 


THE    LANDING. 


39 


il  na- 
lence 
sub- 
It  an- 
them 
ins  in 

r  * 

krud- 

1  forty 

mtire 

front 


rank ;  the  women,  with  their  infants  on  their  backs, 
came  next ;  and  behind  them,  in  yelling  phalanx,  the 
children.  Still  further  back  were  crowds  of  dogs, 
seated  on  their  haunches,  and  howling  in  unison  with 
their  masters. 

The  one  feeling  which,  I  venture  to  say,  pervaded 
us  all,  to  the  momentary  exclusion  of  every  thing  else, 
was  disgust.  Offal  was  strewn  around  without  regard 
to  position ;  scabs  of  drying  seal-meat  were  spread  over 
the  rocks ;  oil  and  blubber  smeared  every  thing,  from 
the  dogs'  coats  to  their  masters' ;  animal  refuse  tainted 
all  we  saw ;  and  we  afterward  found,  while  botaniz- 
ing among  the  snow  valleys,  bones  of  the  seal,  wal- 
rus, and  whale,  buried  in  the  mosses. 

But  if  filth  characterized  the  open  air,  what  was  it 
in  the  habitations !  One  poor  family  had  escaped  to 
their  summer  tent,  pitched  upon  an  adjacent  rock  that 
overlooked  the  sea.  Within  a  little  area  of  six  feet 
by  eight,  I  counted  a  father,  mother,  grandfather,  and 
four  children,  a  tea-kettle,  a  r'lde  box,  two  rifles,  and 
a  litter  of  puppies. 

This  island  is  used  by  the  Danes  as  a  sort  of  fishing 
station,  where  one  European,  generally  a  carpenter  or 
cooper,  presides  over  a  few  families  of  Esquimaux,  who 
live  by  the  chase  of  the  seal.  This  functionary  had 
a  hut  built  of  timber,  which  we  visited.  Except  the 
oil-house,  which  we  had  observed  before,  it  was  the 
only  wooden  edifice. 

The  natives,  if  the  amalgamation  of  Dane  and  Es- 
quimaux  can  be  called  such,  spend  their  summer  in 
the  reindeer  tent,  their  winters  in  the  semi-subterra- 
nean hut.  These  last  have  not  been  materially  im- 
proved since  the  days  of  Egede  and  Fabricius.  A 
square  inclosure  of  stone  or  turf  is  raftered  over  with 


III 
III 

■  ."I 

li 


ill 


lii 


'i  I 


ill 


40 


THE    DWELLNGS. 


drift-wood  or  whalebones,  and  then  roofed  in  with 
earth,  skins,  mosses,  and  broken-up  kayack  frames. 
One  small  aperture  of  eighteen  inches  square,  cover- 
ed with  the  scraped  intestines  of  the  seal,  forms  the 
window ;  and  a  long,  tunnel-like  entry,  opening  to  the 
south,  and  not  exceeding  three  feet  in  height,  leads 
to  a  skin-covered  door.  Inside,  perched  upon  an  ele- 
vated dais  or  stall,  with  an  earthen  lamp  to  establish 
the  "focus,"  several  families  reside  together.  I  have 
seen  as  many  as  four  in  an  apartment  of  sixteen  feet 
square. 

Some  of  these  huts  were  garnished  with  little  tin- 
seled pictures,  and  looked  as  if  their  inmates  were  not 
insensible  to  the  decorative  vanities  of  other  lands. 
Others  were  a  very  caricature  of  discomfort — mouldy, 
dank,  and  fetid ;  their  rude  ceilings  distilling  filthy 
water,  and  sometimes  covered  with  introverted  grasses 
{poa  Danica),  which  had  originally  formed  part  of  the 
outer  thatching,  but  now  intruded  upon  the  greater 
warmth  of  the  interior. 

I  had  but  a  few  hours  to  examine  this  group.  It 
evidently  belongs  to  that  class  of  rocky  islets  known 
to  the  Danes  as  "skerries,"  skiers,  which  are  the  not 
unfrequent  appendages  of  a  primary  coast  ridge. 
"Well-defined  gneiss,  with  intersecting  veins  of  coarse 
red  feldspar,  was  the  basis  material,  the  quartzine  ele- 
ment greatly  predominating.  From  several  rude  sec- 
tions, I  made  the  dip  of  the  strata  to  the  northeast  to 
be  at  an  angle  of  25"  or  30°. 


.  with 
rames. 
cover- 
QS  the 
to  the 
,  leads 
\.n  ele- 
ablish 
[  have 
in  feet 

le  tin- 
re  not 
lands, 
ouldy, 
filthy 
frasses 
of  the 
rreater 


p.  It 
:nown 
le  not 
ridge, 
coarse 
le  ele- 
ie  sec- 
)SLSt  to 


,til 


CHART  OF  THE  WHALE-FISH  ISLANDS. 


in 


Hii 


.  .tti  i^r^»  P^-i"  - 


inspector's  house,  uevely. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


Our  commander  intended  to  remain  at  the  Crown 
Prince  Islands  no  longer  than  was  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  our  consort,  the  Rescue,  to  rejoin  us;  but, 
upon  reviewing  our  hurried  preparation  for  the  hard- 
ships of  the  winter,  he  determined,  with  characteristic 
forethought,  to  send  a  boat  party  to  the  settlement  of 
Lievely,  on  the  neighboring  island  of  Disco,  for  the 
double  purpose  of  collecting  information  and  purchas- 
ing a  stock  of  furs.  The  execution  of  this  duty  he  de- 
volved upon  me. 

We  started  on  the  27th,  Mr.  Lovell,  myself,  an  Es- 
quimaux pilot,  and  a  crew  of  five  men.  As  we  rowed 
along  the  narrow  channels  before  we  emerged  from 
this  rocky  group,  I  observed  for  the  first  time  that 
extreme  transparency  of  the  water  which  has  so  often 
been  alluded  to  by  authors  as  characteristic  of  the  Po- 


44 


LIEVELY. 


4 


1 1 


K   < 


lar  Seas.  At  the  depth  of  ten  fathoms  every  feature 
of  the  bottom  was  distinctly  visible. 

Even  for  one  who  has  seen  the  crimson  dulses  and 
coral  groves  of  the  equatorial  zones,  this  arctic  growth 
had  its  rival  beauties.  Enormous  bottle-green  fronds 
were  waving  their  ungainly  lengths  above  a  labyrinth- 
ine jungle  of  snake-like  stems ;  and  far  down,  where 
the  claws  of  the  fucus  had  grappled  the  round  gneis- 
ses, great  glaring  lime  patches  shone  like  upset  white- 
wash upon  a  home  grassplot. 

It  was  a  rough  sail  outside.  The  bergs  were  nu- 
merous ;  and  the  heavy  sea  way  and  eddying  current, 
sweeping  like  a  mill-race  along  the  southern  face  of 
the  island,  made  us  barely  able  to  double  the  entrance 
to  the  little  harbor.  We  did  double  it,  however,  and 
by  a  sudden  transition  found  ourselves  in  a  quiet  land- 
locked basin,  shadowed  by  wall-like  hills. 

Snow,  as  usual,  covered  the  lower  slopes ;  but,  cheer- 
ful in  spite  of  its  cold  envelope,  rose  a  group  of  rude 
houses,  mottling  the  sky  with  the  comfortable  smoke 
of  their  huge  chimneys.  Among  the  most  conspicu- 
ous of  these  was  one  antique  and  gable  fronted,  with 
timbers  so  heavy  and  besmeared  with  tar,  that  it 
seemed  as  if  built  from  the  stranded  wreck  of  a  vessel. 
Little  man-of-war  port-holes,  recessed  into  its  wooden 
sides,  and  a  jflag-staff,  as  tall  as  the  mast  of  a  jolly- 
boat,  gave  it  dignity.  This  was  the  house  of  the 
"  Royal  Inspector  of  the  Northern  portions  of  Davis's 
Straits;"  whose  occupant — well  and  kindly  remem- 
bered by  all  of  us — no  less  than  the  royal  inspector 
himself,  stood  awaiting  our  landing. 

There  are  but  two  inspectorates  for  the  Danish  coast 
of  Greenland :  one  termed  the  Southern,  whose  cen- 
tre is  Holsteinberg;   the  other  the  Northern,  whose 


MR.    OLRIK. 


45 


Javiss 

imem- 

)ector 

I  coast 
ceii- 
rhose 


seat  is  Lievely.  The  representatives  of  these  are  ed- 
ucated men,  hard-working  and  responsible,  ruling  dic- 
tatorially  the  entire  affairs  of  that  somewhat  singu- 
lar monopoly,  the  Royal  Greenland  Company.  The 
official  labor  of  these  exiled  servants  is  very  heavy. 
They  boat  or  sledge  it  from  post  to  post ;  and  not  only 
settle  all  the  squabbles,  white,  half-breed,  and  Esqui- 
maux, but  audit  all  the  accounts,  and  keep  up  between 
the  little  settlements  writing  enough  to  rule  a  realm. 
Except  that  every  where  forlorn  peripatetic,  the  doc- 
tor, no  one  has  a  more  toilsome  office. 

The  incumbent,  Mr.  Olrik,  was  an  accomplished  and 
hospitable  gentleman,  well  read  in  the  natural  sci- 
ences, and  an  acute  observer.  In  a  few  minutes 
we  were  seated  by  a  ponderous  stove,  and  in  a  few 
more  discussing  a  hot  Eider  duck  and  a  bottle  of  La- 
tour. 

Upon  commencing  my  negotiations  as  to  furs,  the 
object  of  my  journey,  I  learned  that  the  reindeer  do 
not  abound  on  the  island  of  Disco  as  in  the  days  of 
Crantz  and  Egede ;  though  to  the  south,  about  Bunke 
Land,  and  the  fiords  around  Holsteinberg,  and  to  the 
north  of  the  Waigat,  they  are  still  very  numerous. 
Nevertheless,  by  drumming  up  the  resources  of  the 
settlement,  we  obtained  a  supply  of  second-hand  late 
summer  skins ;  and  with  these,  aided  by  the  seal,  soon 
fitted  out  a  wardrobe. 

The  most  popular  article  of  attire  was  the  karah, 
a  "jumper"  or  close  jacket,  slipping  on  like  a  shirt, 
and  hooded  like  the  cowl  of  a  Franciscan  monk ;  but 
the  seal-skin  boot,  a  water-tight  buskin,  ingeniously 
crimped,  so  as  to  do  away  with  a  seam,  was  in  great 
request.  Thanks  to  Mr.  Olrik,  who  actually  robbed 
himself  to  supply  our  wants,  we  were  eminently  sue- 


I 

i  m 


tl; 


1         'II! 


46 


DISCO. 


cessful.     We  felt  that  we  could  now  look  forward  to 
the  winter  with  comparative  trust. 


ESQUIMAUX  HUT. 


Of  Disco,  save  its  Esquimaux  huts,  its  oil-house, 
its  smith-shop,  its  little  school,  and  its  gubernatorial 
mansion,  I  can  say  but  little.  Its  statistics,  vital,  po- 
litical, or  economic,  would  have  little  interest  for  the 
readers  of  this  narrative.  But  my  limited  florula,  gath- 
ered as  I  made  a  few  hasty  walks  under  the  guidance 
of  our  hospitable  and  intelligent  friend,  the  governor, 
may  be  worth  a  notice. 

In  a  ravine,  back  of  the  settlement,  the  washings 
of  the  melted  snows  had  accumulated,  in  little  es- 
calades or  terraces,  a  scanty  mould,  rich  with  Arctic 
growths. 

The  mosses,  which  met  the  lichens  at  a  sort  of 
neutral  ground  between  rock  and  soil,  were  particu- 
larly rich.  So  sodden  were  they  with  the  percolating 
waters,  that  you  sank  up  to  your  ankles.  Nestling 
curiously  under  their  protecting  tufts  rose  a  complete 
parterre  of  tinted  flowers,  consisting  of  Gentians,  Ra- 
nunculus, Ledum,  Draba,  Potentilla,  Saxifrages,  Pop- 
py,  and  Sedums. 

The  Arctic  turf  is  unequaled :  nothing  in  the  trop- 


J 

I 


i      *!  1 


DISCO. 


47 


;rard  to 


l-house, 
latorial 
ital,  po- 

for  the 
a,  gath- 

idance 
vernor, 

Lshings 

Itle  es- 

Aictic 

^ort  of 
irticu- 
plating 
?stling 
iplete 
\s,  Ra- 
Pop. 

trop. 


ics  approaches  it  for  specific  variety,  and  in  density  it 
far  exceeds  its  Alpine  congener.  Two  birches  (Betula 
alba  and B. nana),  three  willows  (Salix  lanata,  S.glau- 
ca,  and  S.  herbacea),  that  noble  heath,  the  Andromeda 
{A. tetragona),  the  whortle-berry  {Vaccimum  vitis-idea 
and  V.  uliginosum),  the  crow-berry  {Empetrum  ni- 
grum), and  a  Potentilla,  were,  in  one  instance,  all 
wreathed  together  in  a  matted  sod,  from  whose  intri- 
cate net- work,  rising  within  an  area  of  a  single  foot,  I 
counted  no  less  than  six  species  of  flowering  plants. 

The  appearance  of  such  turf,  where  the  tree  growths 
of  more  favored  regions  have  become  pronate  and  vine- 
like, and  crowding  individuals  of  non-opposing  fami- 
lies of  flowering  plants  fill  up  the  intervals  with  a  car- 
pet pattern  of  rich  colors,  might  puzzle  a  painter.  It 
reminded  me  of  Humboldt's  covering  with  his  cloak 
the  vegetation  of  four  continents. 

This  little  port  of  Lievely  or  Godhavn  is  on  a  gneis- 
soid  spur,  offsetting  from  the  larger  mass  of  Disco.  I 
subjoin  the  few  observations  which  I  was  able  to 
make  on  the  physical  characters  of  this  island. 

Disco  is  the  largest  circumnavio-able  island  on  the 
coast  of  Greenland.  Its  long  di  noter  is  from  the 
northwest  to  southeast,  and  its  eastern  edge  is  in  a 
continuous  line  with  the  coast  to  the  north  and  south. 
It  is  rendered  insular  by  a  large  strait,  called  the 
Waigat,  which  inosculates  with  the  bay. 

Its  general  geognostical  structure  is  determined  by 
a  great  green-stone  dike  which  crosses  its  entire  length, 
and  is  continued  conformably  across  the  Waigat.  As 
nearly  as  I  could  arrive  at  it,  the  general  trend  of  this 
injection  was  to  the  E.N.E.,  which,  when  afterward 
compared  with  the  northern  Labrador  and  Greenland 
coast,  seemed  to  indicate  a  correspondence  with  the 


.  'Ill, 

,  'lie 
,  i 

■v. 

,  'it. 


I 


!    II' 


48 


DISCO. 


line  of  uplift  of  the  Lake  Superior  traps.  To  the 
southeast,  it  cuts  a  ledge  of  syenitic  gneiss,  leaving  a 
knobbed  peninsula,  abounding  in  low  islands  and  har- 
bors, on  one  of  which  is  the  little  settlement  of  Lievely. 

I  had  not  many  hours  to  devote  to  this  rude  recon- 
noissance,  much  of  which  was  aided  by  bird's-eye 
views  from  the  adjacent  peaks.  Commencing  at  the 
southeastern  end  of  the  island,  and  walking  to  the 
N.N.W.,  I  met  abundant  schistose  material,  inclining 
to  the  northeast  at  an  angle  of  25°.  Against  this  the 
dike  cut  cleanly,  with  little  adjacent  alteration,  ris- 
ing up  from  its  long,  conoidal  slopes  of  detritus  into 
escarped  terraces  nearly  1400  feet  high.  These  were 
like  the  Hindoo  Ghauts,  as  I  had  seen  them  about 
Kandalah ;  they  had  the  same  monumental  structure, 
the  ssbm.e  plateau-fonaed  summit,  the  same  sublime  ra- 
vines. How  strangely  this  crust  we  wander  over  as- 
serts its  identity  through  all  the  disguises  of  climate ! 

Some  five  miles  further  to  the  east,  the  injection 
had  caused  more  disturbance.  My  walk  upon  this 
line  was  soon  varied  with  chloritic  and  slaty  indica- 
tions ;  and,  where  these  met  the  traps,  they  were  in- 
terfused with  sandstones,  and  abounding  with  coarse- 
ly vesicular  amygdaloids.  In  this  transitional  belt  I 
picked  up  some  fine  zeolites.  I  noticed,  too,  nodular 
epidotes  in  profusion. 

So  much  for  Disco.  Paul  Zachareus,  long-haired, 
swarthy,  Christian  Paul,  said  that  the  wind  was  fair  : 
Lovell,  like  a  good  sailor,  exercised  his  authority  over 
the  doctor :  the  furs  were  packed,  my  sketches  and 
wet  hortus  siccus  properly  combined,  and  we  started 
again  for  our  little  brig. 

We  left  the  Whale-fish  Islands  on  the  29th,  in  com- 
pany with  the  Rescue.     On  the  30th  we  doubled  the 


.•iltA         1141 


DISCO. 


49 


'o  the 
iring  a 
id  har- 
evely. 
recon- 
I's-eye 
at  the 
to  the 
jlining 
tiis  the 
m,  ris- 
is  into 
e  were 

about 
ucture, 
ime  ra- 
iver  as- 
limate ! 

action 
m  this 
indica- 

ere  in- 
coarse- 

beltl 

odular 

Laired, 
IS  fair : 
[y  over 
js  and 
parted 


southwest  cape  of  Disco,  and  stood  to  the  northward, 
through  a  crowd  of  noble  icebergs.  On  the  first  of 
July,  early  in  the  morning,  we  encountered  our  first 
field-ice.  From  this  date  really  commenced  the  char- 
acteristic voyaging  of  a  Polar  cruise. 

D 


LIEVELY. 


corn- 
led  the 


•i 


nil! 


'M      E 


'I  < 


.  nil 


omenak's  fiord. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


It  will  be  readily  seen,  that  of  the  voyages  to  Lan- 
caster Sound,  or  indeed  any  of  the  northwestern  seas 
of  Baffin's  Bay,  the  transit  of  the  middle  ice  is  the 
essential  feature.  Its  several  "crossings"  have  been 
divided  into  the  South,  the  Middle,  and  the  Northern 
passages.  By  the  first  of  these,  vessels  reach  the 
American  side  south  of  68°.  Any  passage  between 
this  parallel  and  74"  is  called  a  "Middle"  passage; 
while  the  "  Northern,"  which,  early  in  the  season,  is 
the  almost  universal  track,  skirts  the  coast  of  Green- 
land, and,  passing  the  accumulated  shore  ices  of  Mel- 
ville  Bay,  bears  to  the  westward  through  a  compara- 
tively iceless  area,  known  as  the  North  Water. 

The  Southern  passage  is  not  unfrequently  resorted 
to  for  the  fisheries  of  the  American  coast.  It  is  the  al- 
ternative of  the  whalers  late  in  the  season,  when  they 
have  failed  to  reach  their  western  cruising  grounds  by 
the  North  Water. 

Instances  of  the  Middle  passage  are  rare.  Old  le- 
gends, preserved  at  Uppernavik,  speak  vaguely  of  a 
period  when  a  direct  communication  existed  between 


THE    MIDDLE    ICE. 


Oi 


;o  Lan- 
rn  seas 
1  is  the 
re  been 
^rthern 
ch  the 
Btween 
issage ; 
ison,  is 
Grreen- 
)f  Mel- 
npara- 


)ld  le. 

of  a 

tween 


that  settlement  and  Pond's  Bay ;  but  Parry  was  the 
first  modern  navigator  to  attempt  it  successfully.  In 
his  voyage  of  1819,  he  entered  the  Middle  Ice  on  the 
21st  of  July,  and  emerged  from  it  on  the  28th.  He 
I 'ied  the  experiment  again  in  the  July  of  1824;  but, 
-^  'cer  many  weeks'  delay,  was  forced  to  turn  his  head 
to  the  northward,  and  did  not  reach  the  open  water 
of  the  west  till  the  9th  of  September. 

Other  instances  have  since  occurred  of  like  success ; 
but  among  the  whalers,  who  possess  an  admirable 
tact  in  ice  navigation,  it  is  looked  upon  with  distrust. 
Later  in  the  season,  when  the  disintegration  of  the 
middle  barrier  has  advanced,  and  the  predominant 
winds  have  opened  it  into  transverse  "  leads,"  the  pas- 
sage, though  far  from  easy  or  certain,  is  more  practica- 
ble. 

It  is  by  the  "North  Water,"  however,  that  vessels 
have  generally  approached  the  highway  of  Arctic 
search ;  and,  in  order  to  reach  this,  a  mysterious  re- 
gion of  terrors  must  be  traversed — Melville  Bay — 
notorious  in  the  annals  of  the  whalers  for  its  many 
disasters. 

After  the  voyage  of  Sir  John  Ross  in  1818,  the  fish- 
ing fleet,  which  had  even  then  nearly  driven  the  whale 
beyond  the  coasts  of  Greenland,  began  to  follow  him  to 
the  more  western  waters  of  the  bay.  Vessels  reach- 
ing the  other  side  were  at  that  time  almost  sure  of  a 
cargo ;  and  it  was  not  uncommon  to  see  more  than 
thirty  sail,  of  many  nations,  English,  French,  and  Bal- 
tic,  awaiting  at  one  time  a  favoring  opportunity  for  this 
dreaded  transit.  It  was  called  running  the  gauntlet, 
and  the  opening  scene  of  the  exploits  was  generally 
known  as  the  "Devil's  Nip." 

It  was  for  this  region,  then,  we  were  making  when 


"ir 


!l: 


iilll: 


lilli: 


J' 


liii. 


I      n 


02 


THE    MIDDLE    ICE. 


we  first  fell  in  with  the  ice.  It  was  off'Haroe  Island, 
and  consisted  probably  of  a  tongue  or  process  from 
the  main  pack  I  have  just  described.  Such  interrup- 
tions are  not  uncommon  earlier  in  the  season,  and  the 
whalers  sometimes  avoid  them  by  passing  to  the  in- 
ner or  inshore  side  of  the  island.  We  learned  after- 
ward to  regard  such  ice  as  hardly  worthy  of  note ;  but 
as  this  was  the  first  time  we  had  met  it,  I  have  thought 
it  best  to  quote  literally  from  my  journal. 

"Juli/  1.  This  morning  was  called  on  deck  at  4  A.M. 
by  our  commander. 

"  About  two  hundred  yards  to  the  windward,  form- 
ing a  lee-shore,  was  a  vast  plane  of  undulating  ice,  in 
nowise  differing  from  that  which  we  see  in  the  Dela- 
ware when  mid-winter  is  contending  with  the  ice- 
boats. There  was  the  same  crackling,  and  grinding, 
and  splashing,  but  the  indefinite  extent — an  ocean  in- 
stead of  a  river — multiplied  it  to  a  din  unspeakable ; 
and  with  it  came  a  strange  undertone  accompaniment, 
a  not  discordant  drone.  This  was  the  floe  ice ;  per- 
haps a  tongue  from  the  *  Great  Pack,'  through  which 
we  are  now  every  day  expecting  to  force  our  way.  A 
great  number  of  bergs,  of  shapes  the  most  simple  and 
most  complicated,  of  colors  blue,  white,  and  earth- 
stained,  were  tangled  in  this  floating  field.  Such, 
however,  was  the  inertia  of  the  huge  masses,  that  the 
sheet  ice  piled  itself  up  about  them  as  on  fixed  rocks. 

"  The  sea  immediately  around,  saving  the  ground- 
swell,  was  smooth  as  a  mill-pond ;  but  it  was  studded 
over  with  dark,  protruding  little  globules,  about  the 
size  of  hens'  eggs,  producing  an  effect  like  the  dimples 
of  so  many  overgrown  rain-drops  fallen  on  the  water. 
These,  as  I  afterward  found,  were  rounded  fragments 
of  transparent  and  fresh- water  ice,  the  debris  and  de- 


:V'ti' 


THE    MIDDLE    ICE. 


53 


island, 

3  from 
terrup- 
nd  the 
the  in- 
l  after- 
e;  but 
lought 

4  A.M. 

,  form- 
ice,  in 
3  Dela- 
he  ic3- 
inding, 
sean  in- 
bkable ; 
liment, 
! ;  per- 
which 
ay.    A 
)le  and 
earth- 
Such, 
lat  the 
rocks, 
round- 
udded 
it  the 
^mples 
water, 
ments 
Ind  de- 


tritus of  the  bergs.    We  sailed  along  this  field  about 
ten  miles. 

"At  9  P.M.  the  fogs  settled  around  us,  and  we  en- 
tered again  upon  an  area  full  of  floating  masses  of 
berg.  As  it  was  impossible  to  avoid  them,  they  gave 
us  some  heavy  thumps.  Taking  our  main-mast  for  a 
guide,  we  estimated  the  height  of  the  larger  bergs  at 
about  two  hundred  feet. 

"At  11  we  cleared  the  floes,  and,  favored  with  a  free 
wind,  found  ourselves  nearly  opposite  Omenak's  Fiord, 
a  noted  seat  of  iceberg  growth  and  distribution." 

There  is  a  something  in  the  atmosphere  of  these 
latitudes  that  makes  the  estimate  of  distance  falla- 
cious. How  far  we  were  from  land  I  could  not  tell ; 
but  we  saw  distinctly  the  configuration  of  the  hills 
and  the  deep  recesses  of  the  fiord.  The  sun,  although 
nearing  midnight,  was  five  degrees  above  the  horizon, 
and  threw  its  rich  coloring  over  the  snow.  Many 
large  bergs  were  moving  in  procession  from  the  fiord, 
those  in  the  foreground  in  full  sunshine,  those  in  the 
distance  obscured  by  the  shadow  of  their  parent  hills. 

Omenak's  Fiord,  known  as  Jacob's  Bight,  is  one 
of  the  largest  of  those  strange  clefts,  which,  penetra- 
ting the  mountain  range  at  right  angles  to  its  long 
axis,  form  so  majestic  a  feature  of  Greenland  scenery. 
Its  inland  termination  has  never  been  reached ;  and 
it  is  supposed  by  Scoresby  to  be  continuous  with  the 
large  sounds,  which  on  a  corresponding  parallel  (70° 
40')  enter  from  the  eastern  coast.* 

This  idea  of  an  inosculation,  or  even  more  direct 
connection  between  the  waters  of  Baflin's  Bay  and  the 

*  Although  Graah  expresses  a  doubt  whether  this  sound,  which,  it  seems,  was 
discovered  by  Boon  as  far  back  as  1761,  is  any  thing  more  than  a  large  bay,  I 
incline  strongly  to  the  view,  just  expressed,  of  that  excellent  observer,  Scoresby. 


ir.ii' 


54 


OMENAK  S    FIORD. 


Atlantic,  is  entertained  by  many  of  the  more  intelli- 
gent Danish  and  Esquimaux  residents.  It  is  certain 
that  on  the  Atlantic  coast  a  deep  sea  current  drives 
the  icebergs  seaward;  and  strong  tidal  currents  on 
the  Greenland  side  are  spoken  of  by  the  Danes.  The 
Esquimaux,  too,  whose  information,  however,  must  be 
received  with  caution,  assert  the  existence  of  a  well- 
marked  indraft.  All  this  points  vaguely  to  an  interior 
water  connection  between  the  two  coasts. 

Both  Ovinde  Oerme  and  Omenak's  Fiord,  the  two 
largest  indentations  of  the  bay,  form  at  their  mouths 
a  complicated  archipelago ;  a  fact  that  lends,  at  least, 
a  certain  support  to  Sir  Charles  Geiseke's  opinion,  that 
the  so-called  peninsula  of  Greenland  is  a  congeries  of 
islands,  cemented  by  interior  ice.  I  will  mention  at 
another  portion  of  my  narrative  the  exceptions  which 
I  take  to  a  full  acceptation  of  this  view.  But  a  stronger 
indication  of  the  direct  connection  between  this  strait 
and  the  Atlantic  may  be  derived  from  the  geognostic- 
al  characters  of  the  two  coasts. 

The  southern  side  of  the  large  opening  before  us 
rose  in  a  green-stone  escalade,  a  series  of  true  trachyt- 
ic  terraces,  losing  themselves  in  the  distance ;  while 
on  the  northern  side  the  formation  was  evidently  pri- 
mary and  schistose.  This  corresponds  with  the  ar- 
rangement described  by  Scoresby  on  the  Atlantic 
coast. 

I  had  observed  the  gi-een-stone  extending  in  un- 
broken continuity  from  the  southern  cape  of  Disco 
(C.  Kearsak)  across  the  Waigat;  and  though  my 
sources  of  information  were  limited,  I  had  little  doubt 
but  that  it  passed  along  the  promontory  of  Rittenbank 
to  the  so-called  main,  abutting  throughout  upon  waters 
of  the  sound.    A  similar  range  is  described  by  Scores- 


OMENAK   S    FIORD. 


66 


by,  nearly  opposite  on  the  Atlantic  side,  as  two  thou- 
sand six  hundred  feet  high,  "forming  ledges  not  unlike 
steps,  on  a  gigantic  scale,"  evidently  a  continuation  of 
the  same  dioritic  series ;  while  the  syenites  and  strat- 
ified gneisses  to  the  north  have  their  corresponding  rel- 
ative positions  on  hoth  coasts. 

It  is  up  this  fiord,  prohably  in  the  chasms  of  the 
trap,  that  those  enormous  glaciers  accumulate  which 
have  made  Jacob's  Bight,  perhaps,  the  most  remarka- 
ble locality  in  the  genesis  of  icebergs  on  the  face  of 
the  globe.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  have  the  shore  here 
completely  blocked  in  by  these  gigantic  monsters :  I 
myself  counted  in  one  evening,  the  3d  of  July,  no  less 
than  two  hundred  and  forty  of  primary  magnitude, 
from  the  decks  of  our  vessel.  The  inquiries  I  wees 
enabled  to  make  may  perhaps  throw  some  light  on  the 
causes  of  this  excessive  accumulation. 


t*a 


I 'Bill'! 


i' 


'■;  I' 


III'; 


r)    M 


I     iii 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  glaciers  which  abut  upon  this  sound  are  prob- 
ably offsets  from  an  interior  mer  de  glace.  The  val- 
leys or  canals  which  conduct  these  offsets  were  de- 
scribed to  me  as  singularly  rectilinear  and  uniform  in 
diameter,  a  fact  which  derives  ready  confirmation  from 
the  known  configuration  of  a  dioritic  country.  Now 
the  protrusion  of  these  abutting  faces  into  the  waters 
of  the  sound  has  been  a  subject  of  observation  among 
both  Danes  and  Esquimaux.  Places  about  Jacob's 
Harbor,  remembered  as  the  former  seats  of  habitation, 
are  now  overrun  by  glaciers ;  and  Mr.  Olrik  told  me  of 
a  naked  escarpment  of  ice,  twelve  hundred  feet  high, 
which  he  had  seen  protruding  nearly  half  a  mile  into 
the  sea. 

Crantz  and  Graah  describe  similar  protrusions  to 
the  south.  In  the  conditions  which  I  have  just  de- 
scribed, of  a  rectilinear  duct  of  unvarying  diameter. 


FORMATION    OF    ICEBERGS. 


57 


)rm  m 
from 
Now 

'^aters 
long 

Lcob's 

ition, 
leof 

into 

b  to 

de- 

iter, 


and  a  parent  source  of  great  elevation  and  extent,  we 
have  an  explanation  of  the  excessive  advance  of  these 
glaciers.  But  the  existence  of  an  interior  reservoir  or 
fountain  head,  as  the  source  from  which  this  protrud- 
ing supply  is  furnished,  has  an  interesting  bearing 
upon  Forbes'  beautifully  simple  views  of  a  viscous 
movement. 

That  such  a  movement  takes  place  in  the  Green- 
land glaciers,  I  have,  as  I  hope  to  show  hereafter, 
ample  reasons  for  believing ;  and,  although  the  abso- 
lute rate  of  this  advance  has  never  been  a  subject  of 
educated  observation,  it  would  not  surprise  me  if  the 
gelid  flow  of  these  glacial  rivers  exceeded  during  the 
summer  season  that  of  the  Alps. 

The  materials  thus  afforded  in  redundant  profusion 
are  rapidly  converted  into  icebergs.  The  water  at  the 
bases  of  these  clifls  is  very  deep — I  have  in  my  note- 
book well-established  instances  of  three  hundred  fath- 
oms ;  and  the  pyramidal  structure  of  the  trap  is  such 
as  to  favor  a  precipitous  coast  line.  The  glacier,  thus 
exposed  to  a  saline  water  base  of  a  temperature  above 
the  freezing  point,  and  to  an  undermining  wave  ac- 
tion, aided  by  tides  and  winds,  is  of  course  speedily 
detached  by  its  own  gravitation.  I  am  enabled  to  give 
a  perfectly  reliable  account  of  this  rarely  witnessed 
sight,  the  creation  of  an  iceberg  by  debacle  or  ava- 
lanche. 

Up  this  fiord,  at  an  island  known  in  the  Esquimaux 
tongue  as  Ekarasak,  there  lived  a  deputy  assistant  of 
the  Royal  Greenland  Company,  a  worthy  man  by  the 
name  of  Grundeitz.  It  seems  that  the  deep  water  of 
Omenak's  Fiord  is  resorted  to  for  halibut  fishing,  an 
operation  which  is  carried  on  at  the  base  of  the  cliffs 
with  very  long  lines  of  whalebone.     While  Mr.  Grun- 


ll 


»             ^:t 

i^i ... 

! 

i  1 

11 

hi.  . 

!^' 

It  iij- 

1' 

1.  „i. 

, 

i;: 

i' 

'! 

'  ■  li 

'  1, 

'*i  f 


i:.i' 


:ti" 


:l  i; 


:;i:!l 


ill' 


58 


FORMATION    OF    ICEBERGS. 


'"■■* 


deitz,  in  a  jolly-boat  belonging  to  the  company,  was 
fishing  up  the  fiord,  his  attention  was  called  to  a  large 
number  of  bearded  seals,  who  were  sporting  about  be- 
neath one  of  the  glaciers  that  protruded  into  the  bay. 
While  approaching  for  the  purpose  of  a  shot,  he  heard 
a  strange  sound,  repeated  at  intervals  like  the  ticking 
of  a  clock,  and  apparently  proceeding  from  the  body 
of  the  ice.  At  the  same  time  the  seal,  which  the  mo- 
ment before  had  been  perfectly  unconcerned,  disap- 
peared entirely,  and  his  Esquimaux  attendants,  prob- 
ably admonished  by  previous  experience,  insisted  upon 
removing  the  boat  to  a  greater  distance.  It  was  well 
they  did  so ;  for,  while  gazing  at  the  white  face  of 
the  glacier  at  a  distance  of  about  a  mile,  a  loud  ex- 
plosive detonation,  like  the  crack  of  a  whip  vastly  ex- 
aggerated, reached  their  ears,  and  at  the  same  instant, 
with  reverberations  like  near  thunder,  a  great  mass 
fell  into  the  sea,  obscuring  every  thing  in  a  cloud  of 
foam  and  mist. 

The  undulations  which  radiated  from  this  great 
centre  of  displacement  were  fearful.  Fortunately  for 
Mr.  Grundeitz,  floating  bodies  do  not  change  their 
position  very  readily  under  the  action  of  propagated 
waves,  8,nd  the  boat,  in  consequence,  remained  outside 
the  grinding  fragments ;  but  the  commotion  was  in- 
tense, and  the  rapid  succession  of  huge  swells  such  as 
to  make  the  preservation  of  the  little  party  almost  mi- 
raculous. 

The  detached  mass  slowly  adjusted  itself  after  some 
minutes,  but  it  was  nearly  an  hour  before  it  attained 
its  equilibrium.  It  then  floated  on  the  sea,  an  ice- 
berg.* 

•  This  title  is  applied  by  many  authors  to  ice  masses  either  on  shore  or  at 
sea.    I  restrict  it  to  detached  ice,  in  contradistinction  to  the  glacier  or  ice  in  situ. 


i   i      ll:l  i  l»  i 


ICEBERGS. 


59 


great 
tely  for 
their 
kgated 
)utside 
ras  in- 
ich  as 
fst  mi- 
some 
lained 
ice- 


le  or  at 
linaitu. 


The  mass  thus  detached  appeared,  from  the  descrip- 
tion of  my  informant,  to  be  a  nearly  complete  parallel- 
opipedon.  It  measured,  by  rude  estimate,  three  hund- 
red yards  on  its  exposed  face,  by  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  in  breadth ;  its  height  above  the  sea  "  greater 
than  that  of  our  main-mast." 

The  leading  circumstances  of  this  narrative  were 
confirmed  in  our  own  after  experience  in  Melville  Bay. 
Disruptions  are  witnessed  not  unfrequently  in  icebergs 
after  they  are  afloat,  and  sometimes  on  a  majestic 
scale.     Instances  of  the  debacle  are  more  rare. 

Juli/  2.  The  next  day  we  passed  this  fiord  and 
stood  on  our  course  beyond  an  imposing  headland, 
known  on  the  charts  as  Cape  Cranstown,  through  a 
sea  unobstructed  by  floe  ice,  but  abounding  in  bergs. 

In  the  afternoon  the  wind  subsided  into  a  mere 
cat's-paw,  and  we  were  enabled  to  visit  several  of  the 
icebergs.  I  am  amused  with  the  embarrassments 
which  my  journal  exhibits  in  the  effort  to  describe 
them.  Certain  it  is  that  no  objects  ever  impressed 
me  more.  There  was  something  about  them  so  slum- 
berous  and  so  pure,  so  massive  yet  so  evanescent,  so 
majestic  in  their  cheerless  beauty,  without,  after  all, 
any  of  the  salient  points  which  give  character  to  de- 
scription, that  they  almost  seemed  to  me  the  mate- 
rial  for  a  dream,  rather  than  things  to  be  definitely 
painted  in  words. 


m 


'I''! 


I  'I 


i)i>{ 

i^i;!?i 


ii> 


ill 

k 

'  liii 


•y; 


iiii| 


'i||l|ri'. 


'"'M^ 


HI  ' 


1      ;'•! 
■I 


:  11 


60 


ICEBERGS. 


The  first  that  we  approached  was  entirely  inaccess- 
ible. Our  commander,  in  whose  estimates  of  distance 
and  magnitude  I  have  great  confidence,  made  it  nearly 
a  mile  in  circumference.  With  the  exception  of  one 
rugged  corner,  it  was  in  shape  a  truncated  wedge,  and 
its  surface  a  nearly  horizontal  plateau.  The  next  pre- 
sented a  well-marked  characteristic,  which,  as  I  ob- 
served it  afterward  in  other  examples,  enabled  me  to 
follow  the  history  of  the  berg  throughout  all  its  changes 
of  equilibrium :  it  was  a  rectilinear  groove  at  the  water- 
line,  hollowed  out  by  the  action  of  the  waves. 

These  "  grooves"  were  seen  in  all  the  bergs  which 
had  remained  long  in  one  position.  They  were  some- 
times crested  with  fantastic  serratures,  and  their  tun- 
nel-like  roofs  were  often  pendant  with  icicles.  On  a 
grounded  berg  the  tides  may  be  accurately  guaged  by 
these  lines,  and,  in  the  berg  before  me,  a  number  of 
them,  converging  to  a  point  not  unlike  the  rays  of  a 
fan,  pointed  clearly  to  those  changes  of  equilibrium 
which  had  depressed  one  end  and  elevated  the  other. 

A  third  was  a  monster  ice  mountain,  at  least  two 
hundred  feet  high,  irregularly  polyhedral  in  shape, 
and  its  surface  diversified  with  hill  and  dale.  Upon 
this  one  we  landed.  I  had  never  appreciated  before 
the  glorious  variety  of  iceberg  scenery.  The  sea  at 
the  base  of  this  berg  was  dashing  into  hollow  caves 


ICEBERGS. 


61 


of  pure  and  intense  ultramarine ;  and  to  leeward  the 
quiet  water  lit  the  eye  down  to  a  long,  spindle-shaped 
root  of  milky  whiteness,  which  seemed  to  dye  the 
sea  as  it  descended,  until  the  blue  and  white  were 
mixed  in  a  pale  turkois.  Above,  and  high  enough  to 
give  an  expression  akin  to  sublimity,  were  bristling 
crags. 

This  was  the  first  berg  that  I  had  visited.  I  was 
struck  with  its  peculiar  opacity,  the  result  of  its  gran- 
ulated structure.  I  had  incidentally  met  with  the 
remark  of  Professor  Forbes,  that  "the  floating  icebergs 
of  the  Polar  Seas  are  for  the  most  part  of  the  nature 
of  neve ;"  and,  while  I  was  at  a  distance,  had  looked 
upon  the  substance  of  the  mass  before  me  as  identical 
with  the  "  firn,"  or  consolidated  snow  of  the  Alpine  gla- 
ciers. I  now  found  cause,  for  the  first  time,  to  change 
this  opinion.  The  ice  of  this  berg,  although  opaque 
and  vesicular,  was  true  glacier  ice,  having  the  fracture, 
lustre,  and  other  external  characters  of  a  nearly  homo- 
geneous growth.  The  same  authority,  in  speaking  of 
these  bergs,  declares  that  "  the  occurrence  of  true  ice 
is  comparatively  rare,  and  is  justly  dreaded  by  ships." 
From  this  impression,  which  was  undoubtedly  derived 
from  the  appearance  of  a  berg  at  a  distance,  I  am  also 
compelled  to  dissent.  The  iceberg  is  true  ice,  and  is 
always  dreaded  by  ships.  Indeed,  though  modified  by 
climate,  and  especially  by  the  alternation  of  day  and 
night,  the  Polar  glacier  must  be  regarded  as  strictly 
atmospheric  in  its  increments,  and  not  essentially  dif- 
fering from  the  glacier  of  the  Alps. 

The  general  color  of  a  berg  I  have  before  compared 
to  frosted  silver.  But  when  its  fractures  are  very  ex- 
tensive, the  exposed  faces  have  a  very  brilliant  lustre. 
Nothing  can  be  more  exquisite  than  a  fresh,  cleanly- 


'I')'' ' 

&^ 
.'m , 

if  I: 
■■''' 
:'1i   ''11 


■"■'  1 

i'l'  ■! 


'■«■  ?i!! 


62 


ICEBERGS. 


fractured  berg  surface.  It  reminded  me  of  the  recent 
cleavage  of  sulphate  of  strontian — a  resemblance  more 
striking  from  the  slightly  lazulitic  tinge  of  each. 


'"iiii'' 


"'M' 


.:    I 


1 


I 


!:* 


I 


H  \\ 


CHAPTER  IX. 


I 


We  pursued  our  way,  flapping  lazily  along  side  of 
the  "pack,"  and  sometimes  forcing  an  opening  through 
its  projecting  tongues.  On  the  morning  of  the  3d, 
while  beating  between  the  ice  and  the  shore,  we  stood 
close  in  to  a  lofty  headland,  known  as  Svartehuk,  or 
Black  Head.  This  dark  promontory  deserves  its 
name.  It  is  of  the  usual  metamorphic  structure,  ow- 
ing  its  color  to  the  hornblende  it  contains.  The  re- 
treating character  of  the  coast  to  the  north  and  south 
of  it,  makes  it  a  noted  landmark  among  the  whalers. 
At  the  distance  of  three  miles,  I  sketched  an  escarped 


^^^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^'ri 

-■'_ 

~^5^^B^^^^^ 

section  of  it,  discolored  by  iron-clay  conglomerates,  and 
exhibiting  a  gnarled  and  irregular  structure. 


Si 


m 

m 


*''»' 


111  I'' 

■li-iiii, 


lil 


I^Hi 


»i'il 


:!l':J 


1K:: 


!ii  !' 


i,        ill'' 


4 

i 


Til' 


64 


REFRACTION. 


Our  American  birth-day,  the  4th  of  July,  could  not 
pass  us  without  at  least  a  festive  effort ;  so  we  tap- 
ped a  bottle  of  Heidsiek  in  the  cabin,  and  all  hands 
spliced  the  main-brace.  But  the  day  was  neverthe- 
less a  busy  one.  What  little  wind  we  had  was  near- 
ly dead  ahead,  though  we  managed  to  work  along  the 
open  water,  making  "the  pack"  and  the  shore  by  al- 
ternate "tacks."  At  8  A.M.  it  fell  calm,  leaving  us 
entangled  among  fragments  of  heavy  floe.  We  got 
the  brig's  head  to  the  eastward  with  difficulty,  and,  in 
the  midst  of  a  dense  fog,  fired  our  blunderbuss  and 
hove  to  for  the  "Rescue,"  no  objects  being  visible 
more  than  a  half  ship's  length  from  the  decks. 

The  fog  left  us  about  mid-day,  and  the  atmosphere 
was  so  clear  in  the  afternoon,  that  the  land,  although 
thirty  miles  off,  was  seen  distinctly.  The  water  and 
the  sky,  in  somewhat  anomalous  contrast  with  this  ex- 
tremely pellucid  state  of  air,  had  a  pearly  or  ash-colored 
tinting,  and  the  floe  ice,  of  which  large  quantities  were 
around  us,  varied  like  the  shadows  of  a  daguerreotype. 

Toward  11  P.M.  the  temperature  of  the  water  fell 
to  30°,  while  that  of  the  air  rose  to  36°  and  37°.  Look- 
ing toward  the  shore,  I  observed  a  sort  of  shimmering, 
as  of  the  heated  air  above  a  stove,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  the  base  of  the  hills  assumed  a  columnar  char- 
acter, as  marked  as  in  the  basalts  of  Staffa.  Soon  aft- 
erward, the  entire  land  came  up  to  us  through  a  high- 
ly refractive  medium,  and  the  vertical  arrangement 
which  had  displayed  itself  before  in  columns  was 
broken  into  waving  curves,  the  parallelism  of  their 
lines  remaining  unchanged.  As  the  sun  reached  his 
greatest  meridional  depression,  this  was  accompanied 
by  an  extreme  distortion.  The  homogeneous  charac- 
ter of  the  atmosphere  was  singularly  disturbed.     It 


REFRACTIOK. 


65 


was  like  gazing  at  a  panorama  through  badly  blown 
and  uneven  glass. 

The  little  islands  about  the  shore  were  elevated  into 
Champagne  bottles  and  mushrooms,  and  some  head- 
lands, which  I  had  sketched  before  the  distortion,  now 
sent  out  lateral  prolongations  which  almost  bridged 
the  contiguous  hills. 


Although  I  have  since  seen  many  beautiful  displays 
of  this  phenomenon,  I  have  never  known  it  more  strik- 
ingly varied  within  such  limited  compass.  My  slcetch 
shows  in  the  upper  line  the  true  profile  of  the  coast ; 
the  two  lower  lines  give  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  its 
.successive  phases  as  refracted.  It  was,  indeed,  im- 
possible to  embody  them  in  a  drawing.  A  thousand 
forms,  inverted,  looming,  and  distorted  most  extrava- 
gantly, were  shifting  about  within  an  arc  of  ten  de- 
grees of  coast.  At  the  same  time,  we  had  out  among 
the  icebergs,  toward  the  southwest,  the  repetition  on 
an  enlarged  scale  of  the  complicated  modifications  of 
refraction  seen  off  Ramsgate,  and  described  by  Pro- 

E 


III!  I 


li 


ii>: 


"ii!*,i| 


ill;""' 


.III  1  '■" 


im 


"ll'IIIJ 


:H 


66 


REFRACTION. 


fessor  Vince.  I  allude  to  those  in  which  the  object 
has  a  three-fold  representation.  The  single  repeti- 
tion was  visible  all  around  us ;  the  secondary  or  in- 
verted image  sometimes  above  and  sometimes  below 
the  primary.  But  it  was  not  uncommon  to  see,  also, 
the  uplifted  iceberg,  with  its  accompanying  or  false 
horizon,  joined  at  its  summit  by  its  inverted  image, 
and  then,  above  a  second  horizon,  a  thi^d  berg  in  its 
natural  position.  Professor  Agassiz  has  described  a 
similar  class  of  repeated  images  upon  Lake  Superior, 
limited,  however,  to  two — one  inverted,  and  above  that 
the  same  erect.  He  suggests  that  it  may  be  simply 
the  reflection  of  the  landscape  inverted  upon  the  sur- 
face of  the  lake,  and  reproduced  with  the  actual  land- 
scape. The  calm,  reflecting  surface  of  the  ice  lakes 
of  Baffin's  Bay  would  favor  such  an  explanation.  The 
extension  to  a  third  and  fourth  image  is  very  interest- 
ing.    I  am  afraid  to  attempt  delineating  it. 

July  5.  Although  the  next  day  was  nearly  calm, 
the  water  was  so  smooth,  from  the  protection  of  the 
"  floes,"  that,  with  hardly  any  perceptible  motion,  we 
managed  to  fan  along  at  a  rate  of  two  knots  an  hour, 
our  sails  flapping  all  the  time  lazily  against  the  masts* 
The  sailing  of  these  ice-environed  waters  is  incompa- 
rable in  its  way.  The  sra  swell,  arrested  by  success- 
ive break- waters,  does  uot  reach  them.  We  sailed  as 
though  upon  a  placia  lake,  towed  by  invisible  hands, 
and  were  only  made  conscious  of  motion  by  the  chan- 
ges of  the  icy  pack  whose  margin  we  were  skirting. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  day,  refraction  came  back 
to  us.  I  see  by  my  journal  that  I  spent  four  hours 
upon  deck,  taking  sextant  observations  with  Mr.  Lov- 
ell.  No  fata  morgana  nor  tropical  mirage  ever  sur- 
passed the  extraordinary  scene  of  this  night. 


V,.i-j'«!iH/j, 


REFRACTION. 


e? 


calm, 
the 
we 
hour, 
lasts* 
mpa- 
cess- 
ed  as 
mds, 
han- 
ng. 
Iback 
lours 
ILov- 
sur- 


Voyagers  speak  of  the  eflfects  of  Arctic  refraction  in 
language  as  exact  and  mathematical  as  their  own  cor- 
rection tables.  It  almost  seems  as  if  their  minute  ob- 
servations of  dip-sectors  and  repeating-circles  had  left 
them  no  scope  for  picturesque  sublimity.  This  may 
excuse  a  literal  transcript  from  my  diary,  which  runs 
perhaps  into  the  other  extreme. 

^^ Friday,  11  P.M.  A  strip  of  horizon,  commencing 
about  8°  to  the  east  of  the  sun,  and  between  it  and 
the  land,  resembled  an  extended  plain,  covered  with 
the  debris  of  ruined  cities.  No  effort  of  imagination 
was  necessary  for  me  to  travel  from  the  true  watery 
horizon  to  the  false  one  of  refraction  above  it,  and 
there  to  see  huge  structures  lining  an  aerial  ocean- 
margin.  Some  of  rusty,  Egyptian,  rubbish-clogged 
propyla,  and  hypaethral  courts  —  some  tapering  and 
columnar,  like  Palmyra  and  Baalbec  —  some  with 
architrave  and  portico,  like  Telmessus  or  Athens,  or 
else  vague  and  grotto-like,  such  as  dreamy  memories 
recalled  of  Ellora  and  Carli. 

"  I  can  hardly  realize  it  as  I  write ;  but  it  was  no 
trick  of  fancy.  The  things  were  there  half  an  hour 
ago.  I  saw  them,  capricious,  versatile,  full  of  forms, 
but  bright  and  definite  as  the  phases  of  sober  life. 
And  as  my  eyes  ran  round  upon  the  marvelous  a,nd 
varying  scene,  every  one  of  these  well-remembered 
cities  rose  before  me,  built  up  by  some  suggestive  feat- 
ure of  the  ice. 

"  An  iceberg  is  one  of  God's  own  buildings,  preaching 
its  lessons  of  humility  to  the  miniature  structures  of 
man.  Its  material,  one  colossal  Pentelicus ;  its  mass, 
the  representative  of  power  in  repose ;  its  distribution, 
simulating  every  architectural  type.  It  makes  one 
smile  at  those  classical  remnants  which  our  own  pe- 


.:■.,-•«' 


68 


REFRACTION. 


'■*!i*|i!|l 


"'■if  I 


:i!" 


1^8 


nfni 


riod  reproduces  in  its  Madeleines,  Walhallas,  and  Gi- 
rard  colleges,  like  university  poems  in  the  dead  lan- 
guages. Still,  we  can  compare  them  with  the  iceberg ; 
for  the  same  standard  measures  both,  as  it  does  Chim- 
borazo  and  the  Hill  of  Howth.  But  this  thing  of  re- 
fraction is  supernatural  throughout.  The  wildest  frolic 
of  an  opium-eater's  revery  is  nothing  to  the  phantas- 
magoria of  the  sky  to-night.  Karnaks  of  ice,  turned 
upside  down,  were  resting  upon  rainbow-colored  ped- 
estals :  great  needles,  obelisks  of  pure  whiteness,  shot 
up  above  their  false  horizons,  and,  after  an  hour-glass- 
like contraction  at  their  point  of  union  with  their  du- 
plicated images,  lost  themselves  in  the  blue  of  the 
upper  sky. 

"While  I  was  looking — the  sextant  useless  in  my 
hand,  for  I  could  not  think  of  angles — a  blurred  and 
wavy  change  came  over  the  fantastic  picture.  Pris- 
matic tintings,  too  vague  to  admit  of  dioptric  analysis, 
began  to  margin  my  architectural  marbles,  and  the 
scene  faded  like  one  of  Fresnel's  dissolving  views. 
Suddenly,  by  a  flash,  they  reappeared  in  full  beauty ; 
and,  just  as  I  was  beginning  to  note  in  my  memo- 
randum-book  the  changes  which  this  brief  interval 
had  produced,  they  went  out  entirely,  and  left  a  nearly 
clear  horizon." 

Abrupt  and  versatile  as  were  these  changes  in  the 
refracting  medium,  those  in  the  temperature  about  us 
were  no  less  so.  The  relation  between  them  was  ap- 
parent, even  within  the  limited  range  to  which  we 
could  extend  our  observations.  At  3  A.M.,  while  the 
phenomena  I  have  described  were  in  full  brilliancy, 
my  thermometers  on  deck  and  in  the  main-top  stood 
respectively  at  36°  and  39°,  while  the  surface  water 
indicated  32°.     Ten  minutes  afterward,  there  were 


"-'^■^'y».,^'...  - 


w-i'-Vf^,.* 


the 
It  us 
ap- 
we 
the 
icy, 
tood 
iter 
rere 


TEMPERATURES. 


69 


no  evidences  of  refraction  visible,  except  some  slight 
loomings  of  the  more  distant  bergs.  The  same  ther- 
mometers now  gave,  both  below  and  aloft,  36°,  and  the 
water  had  risen  to  38°.  The  surface  of  the  sea  at  this 
time  was  cafs-pawed  as  far  as  could  be  seen.  A  barely 
perceptible  breeze,  which  set  in  suddenly  from  the 
northeast,  had  undoubtedly  contributed  to  restore  the 
homogeneity  of  the  atmosphere. 

My  sketches  of  the  coast,  which  had  now  been  vis- 
ible for  nearly  three  days  without  interruption,  show 
what  strange  diversities  of  outline  may  be  induced  by 
refraction.  The  illusions  are  so  perfect  that  it  is  hard- 
ly possible  to  arrive  at  the  normal  aspect  of  the  shore. 
Such  changes,  especially  of  altitude,  must  be  a  source 
of  serious  embarrassment  in  the  recognition  of  land- 
marks. 


the 


ity; 
jmo- 


rly 


!* 


IK 


lil'^'  !l 


■-■1i 


Si 


^%%r?:- 


OOMIAK   AND   KAYACK. 


CHAPTER  X. 


■"'fll' 


Juhj  6.  The  6th  found  us  in  latitude  72°  54',  beat- 
ing to  windward,  as  usual,  between  "the  pack"  and 
the  land.  This  land  was  of  some  interest  to  us,  for 
we  were  now  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Danish  set- 
tlement of  Uppernavik. 

With  the  exception  of  one  subordinate  station,  eight- 
een miles  further  to  the  north,  this  is  the  last  of  the 
Danish  settlements.  It  is  the  jumping-off  place  of  Arc- 
tic navigators — our  last  point  of  communication  with 
the  outside  world.  Here  the  British  explorers  put  the 
date  to  their  official  reports,  and  send  home  their  last 
letters  of  good-by.  We  sent  ours  without  the  delay 
of  seeking  the  little  port ;  for  a  couple  of  kayacks 
boarded  us  twenty  miles  out  to  sea,  and  for  a  few  bis- 
cuits gladly  took  charge  of  our  dispatches.  The  hon- 
esty of  these  poor  Esquimaux  is  proverbial.  Letters 
committed  to  their  care  are  delivered  with  unerring 
safety  to  the  superintendent  of  the  port  or  station. 

We  were  boarded,  too,  by  an  oomiak,  or  woman's 
boat,  returning  from  a  successful  seal  hunt.  From 
the  crew,  consisting  of  three  women  and  four  men, 


^ixMrnmiJ^iim 


THE    MIDDLE    PACK. 


71 


we  purchased  a  goodly  stock  of  eider  eggs  and  three 
young  seals. 

July  7.  We  had  now  passed  the  seventy- third  de- 
gree of  latitude  without  heing  materially  retarded  hy 
ice.  The  weather  was  one  unbroken  sunshine,  and 
worthier  of  the  Bay  of  Naples  than  Baffin's.  The 
coast  on  our  right  hand  consisted  of  low  islands,  so 
grouped  as  to  resemble  continuous  land.  They  were 
a  part  of  the  archipelago  at  the  mouth  of  the  large 
fiord  of  Ovinde  Oerme,  and  varied  in  size  from  mere 
knobs  to  lofty  headlands  not  less  than  fifteen  hundred 
feet  high.  To  our  left  was  a  coast  of  a  different  char- 
acter— the  ice.  This  we  had  now  skirted  since  the 
3d.  We  knew  it,  therefore,  to  be  a  part  of  that  great 
barrier,  the  "middle  pack,"  around  whose  dangerous 
circuit  we  had  to  pass  before  reaching  the  western 
waters.  By  standing  in  and  out,  we  made  the  dis- 
tance of  the  pack  from  shore  to  be  about  thirty  miles. 
The  space  between  was  clear,  and  it  was  along  this, 
as  upon  a  great  river,  we  had  thus  far  pushed  our  way 
uninterrupted. 

July  7.  On  the  morning  of  the  7th,  a  large  vacant 
sheet  of  water  showed  itself  to  the  westward,  pene- 
trating the  ice  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach ;  and  from 
the  top-mast-head  we  could  see  the  southern  margin 
of  this  ice  losing  itself  in  a  clear,  watery  horizon.  It 
was  a  strong  temptation.  Our  commander  determined 
to  try  for  a  passage  through. 

As  this  day  exercised  a  somewhat  controlling  influ- 
ence upon  our  future  progress,  I  will  give  its  occur- 
rences as  they  stand  in  my  journal. 

"  It  commenced,"  says  the  log-book,  with  "  the  pack 
ahead,  a  four-knot  breeze  from  the  E.N.E.,  and  our 
course  to  the  southwest."     By  ten  we  fastened  in  the 


m 

wk'-\ 

fSlk  il 

^  'S 

I  ■  n 

Wbk 

(•..  Ij  fn 

^^H  w 

\M 

Wki 

BBB;  ! 

^'H 

^Q[' 

m 

Eysff  i 

I. 


w 


I'll  I''  , 


12 


FAST. 


'I'i.', 


■.■5    hMi: 

.::;'  "(1 


m 


.,1 


,...  1^, 


■II 

■I 


ice ;  but,  by  cutting  and  boring,  succeeded  in  penetrat- 
ing it,  and  sailed  on  through  loose  streams  until  noon. 

"  We  now  entered  fairly  the  so-thought  open  water, 
keeping  the  shore  on  our  starboard  beam,  and  steering 
for  the  northeast  and  north,  at  a  rate  of  six  knots, 
through  an  apparently  unobstructed  sea.  But  the 
sanguine  anticipations  of  our  commander  were  soon 
to  be  moderated.  By  four  in  the  afternoon,  after  plac- 
ing at  least  fifty  miles  between  us  and  the  coast,  the 
leads  began  to  close  around  us.  Fearing  a  separation 
from  the  Rescue,  we  took  her  in  tow  and  continued 
our  efforts ;  but  from  5  P.M.  until  the  termination  of 
the  day,  our  progress  was  absolutely  nothing.  The 
morning  of  the  8th  opened  upon  us  fast  in  summer  ice. 

"July  8.  Fast !  Around  us  a  circle  of  snow-covered 
ice,  streaked  with  puddles  of  dark  water,  and  varied 
(alas  for  the  variety !)  by  the  very  distant  looming  of 
some  icebergs.  In  the  centre  of  thif^  dreariness  are 
the  two  vessels — 'Advance'  and  'Rescue.' 

"Our  commander,  loth  to  relinquish  his  hopes,  de- 
termined to '  bore.'  This  operation,  which  consists  in 
forcing  a  passage  through  the  ice,  continued  through- 
out the  night — 'all  hands'  jumping  upon  the  floes, 
and  working  away  with  crow-bar,  boat-hook,  ice-an- 
chor, and  warping-lines.  The  result  of  all  this  labor 
was,  that  the  two  vessels  made  about  three  quarters 
of  a  mile  into  deeper  entanglement;  and  now,  at  11 
P.M.,  we  are  fast  in  the  apparent  centre  of  a  solid  sea. 

"All  the  men  are  asleep  except  Dunning,  our  watch- 
man ;  and  but  for  his  tramp  on  the  deck  overhead, 
and  the  scraping  of  my  pen  over  the  paper,  the  silence 
is  complete.  My  mess-mates,  thoroughly  tired  out, 
are  breathing  heavily  from  their  bunks. 

"Juli/  9.  Although  we  commenced  bright  and  early 


FAST. 


73 


to  warp  our  way  through  the  impacted  ice,  we  found, 
after  much  labor,  that  the  entire  day's  reward  was 
about  three  miles.  We  are  now  again  fast,  complete- 
ly 'beset,'  and  only  waiting  to  rest  the  crew  before 
we  renew  our  efforts." 

What  these  efforts  were  it  may  be  as  well  to  ex- 
plain, for  the  benefit  of  fireside  navigators,  and  perhaps 
some  others.  Those  who  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships 
know  that  it  is  easy  enough  to  drive  along  in  a  clear 
sea  on  a  free  wind,  or  to  haul  into  dock,  or  to  warp  up 
a  quiet  river,  butting  aside  the  lazy  vessels  as  they 
swing  at  anchor.  How  do  we  sail,  and  haul,  and 
warp  in  these  Arctic  Seas !  It  is  a  long  story,  and,  to 
understand  it,  we  must  begin  at  the  beginning. 


^ 


It 


'?n 


i*li^ 


"ttf 


"UMMOCKS. 


I  have  already  described  that  enormous  winter 
growth  which,  under  the  name  of  the  "  great  pack," 
blocks  up  the  entire  waters  of  this  region  from  the  un- 
known  North  to  the  marginal  influences  of  the  Gulf 
Stream.  What  is  this  "  middle"  pack,  into  whose 
eastern  margin  we  had  now  thrust  ourselves  ? 

The  short  but  ardent  summer  of  the  Arctic  zone, 
with  its  continuous  sun,  aided  by  a  rapid  drift  toward 
the  Atlantic  Ocean,  and  by  compensating  currents 


■tn 


-,.  m< 
mm 


■' :  ■■"ii' 


i 

1'    ,. 

i '^ 

■111 

i 

1 
i 

I 

ii 

-III' 
■■' 1.^'. 

■"i 

1 

IT 

74 


THE    MIDDLE    ICE. 


from  the  warm  regions  of  the  equator,  soon  reduces 
the  winter  pack  into  straggling  fields  of  diminished 
thickness  and  integrity.  These,  uniting  again  by 
their  cohesive  tendencies,  form  an  irregularly  lenticu- 
lar raft,  which  occupies  the  central  portions  of  the  bay, 
and  is  called  the  "  middle"  ice,  to  distinguish  it  from 
the  great  pack  of  winter. 

This,  then,  is  the  summer  remnant  of  the  winter 
growth — a  patch- work  composed  of  all  sorts  of  ice,  di- 
versified in  pattern,  age,  and  condition,  and  varying 
in  size  from  small  fragments,  called  "  skreed,"  to 
"  floes"  or  fields,  so  limited  that  the  eye  defines  theii 
extent.  The  floes  may  be  said  to  form  the  basis  of 
the  pack.  Their  thickness  ranges  from  a  few  inches 
to  many  feet,  and  their  diameter  is  often  many  miles. 
I  can  not  attempt  to  describe  the  uniform  dreariness 
of  their  water-sodden  marshes  and  long  snow-covered 
platforms,  without  a  point  to  mark  "  the  level  waste, 
the  rounding  gray."  This  sameness,  however,  is  not 
always  so  absolute ;  for,  at  the  margins  of  the  floes, 
where  their  ragged  edges  have  come  into  grinding 
contact,  the  ice  is  piled  up  into  ridges,  that  streak  the 
surface  like  the  mounds  of  a  recently-ditched  meadow. 
These  are  the  "  hummocks." 

The  near  effect  of  the  ice  and  water,  where  they 
come  together  is  not  without  beauty  of  its  own.  The 
water  is  itself  of  an  inky  darkness,  a  quality  seemingly 
independent  of  mere  contrast.  It  is  rarely  even  ruf- 
fled by  the  wind ;  and  its  placid  surface  reflects  the 
marginal  ice,  with  its  submerged  tongues,  in  mirror- 
like accuracy. 

This  ice  is  the  great  bugbear  of  Baflin's  Bay  navi- 
gation :  yet  I  can  not  help  thinking  that  somewhat 
too  much  stress  is  laid  by  the  English  navigators  upon 


THE    MIDDLE    ICE. 


75 


its  character  of  a  central  barrier.  Not  only  its  condi- 
tion, but  its  general  extent,  varies  with  the  season.  It 
is  well  known  to  the  most  observant  of  the  whalers 
that  the  winds  of  the  early  spring,  or  "  breaking-up" 
period,  almost  enable  them  to  determine  its  position 
in  advance.  A  preponderance  of  northwest  winds  will 
drive  it  from  the  American  coast ;  or  the  northeasters 
of  the  spring  and  summer  will  often  distribute  it  into 
long  straggling  bands,  that  intrude  upon  certain  por- 
tions of  the  upper  coast,  as  at  Haroe,  Svartehuk,  and 
the  Duck  Islands. 

The  axis  of  Baffin's  Bay,  according  to  our  own  ob- 
servations, which  add  nearly  thirty  miles  to  the  width 
of  Davis'  Straits  at  Cape  Walsingham,  is  from  the 
north  by  east.  The  great  bodies  of  ice,  which  enter 
this  bay  from  Lancaster  Sound  and  the  northern  es- 
tuaries of  Jones  and  Smith,  are  undoubtedly  impressed 
by  the  earth's  rotation  as  they  proceed  to  the  south,  thus 
causing  an  accumulation  on  the  coasts  of  North  Amer- 
ica, which  augments  with  the  increasing  radius  of  rota- 
tion, while  thf  Greenland  side  is  left  completely  open. 

As  we  advance  to  the  north,  this  passage  becomes 
more  circumscribed  and  uncertain,  so  that  the  ice  is  gen- 
erally encountered  by  the  whalers  before  they  reach  the 
70th  parallel.  When,  however,  they  pass  to  the  north 
of  latitude  73°  50'  they  enter  upon  a  region  of  nearly 
perpetual  ice.  Here  the  middle  pack  intrudes  upon 
the  shores,  and  fills  that  large  horse-shoe  indentation 
which  is  known  as  Melville  Bay.  This  term  is  vague- 
ly ppplied  by  the  whalers  to  a  sweep  of  coast  extend- 
ing  i'roin  the  Devil's  Thumb,  or  Wilcox  Point,  to  Capes 
Dudley  Diggs  and  York.  It  comprises  on  the  charts 
the  several  bays  of  Prince  Regent,  Melville,  Duneira, 
and  Allison. 


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76 


THE     MIDDLE    ICE ITS     CAUSES. 


1  he  causes  of  this  accumulation,  so  disastrous  to 
the  navigation  of  the  w^estern  and  northern  waters  of 
the  bay,  may  be  attributed  in  some  measure  to  the 
high  latitudes  leaving  the  ice  as  yet  mipfibcted  by  the 
southerly  and  westerly  influences  to  which  X  have  al- 
luded, and  therefore  more  open  to  local  cau^'es  o!  de- 
viation, such  as  currents  and  winds.  The  neighbor- 
hood of  this  region  to  the  sources  of  ice  supply,  the 
sounds  of  Jones,  Lancaster,  and  Wolstenholme,  may 
be  referred  to  as  another  cause  ;  for  the  ice,  alter 
changing  its  original  axis  of  drift,  has  not  yet  attained 
its  free  rate  of  motion  in  a  new  direction.  Then,  too, 
there  are  seine  peculiarities  in  the  current  action  of 
the  bay,  as  yet  imperfectly  studied,  which  can  not  be 
without  their  influence.  It  is  altogether  probable  that 
a  portion  of  the  interval  between  the  eastern  and 
western  coasts  is  the  seat  of  a  partial  slackwater,  or 
even  rotating  eddy.  And,  in  addition  to  all  these,  there 
is  the  direct  agency  of  that  great  body  of  water  which 
issues  from  Lancaster  Sound.  This  passes  from  west 
to  east,  in  latitude  74°  30' ;  and  my  notes  indicate  the 
axis  of  its  course  as  the  line  at  which  the  Melville  Bay 
accumulation  begins. 

All  of  these  causes  are  undoubtedly  aided  by  the 
numerous  bergs  discharged  from  the  glaciers  of  this 
portion  of  the  Greenland  coast,  which  have  often  move- 
ments counter  to  those  of  the  surface  ice,  and  retard 
its  descent  and  progress  very  considerably. 

It  is  through  this  ice-clogged  bay  that  the  great 
fleets  of  Baffin  whale  ships  have,  for  the  last  thirty- 
two  years,  made  an  annual  attempt  to  pass.  The 
mysticete,  driven  from  their  feeding  grounds  on  the 
coast  of  Greenland,  have  sought  a  refuge  on  the  west- 
ern side;  and  their  seats  of  favorite  resort,  in  the  ear- 
ly part  of  the  season,  are  now  in  the  waters  oi'  Lan- 


THE     MIDDLE     ICE. 


77 


caster,  Prince  Regent,  and  Wellington  Sounds,  and  the 
indentations  of  the  northwestern  coast  of  Baffin's  Bay. 
The  vessels  which  have  succeeded  in  penetrating  this 
intervening  ice-barrier  before  August  are  sure  of  a  full 
cargo ;  but  after  this  time  all  efforts  are  useless.  The 
"  fleet"  is  spoken  of  as  "  baffled,"  and  is  obliged  to  seek 
other  "grounds"  to  the  south  and  west.  It  is,  in  fact, 
a  great  lottery,  the  caprices  of  the  ice  controlling  the 
efforts  of  the  most  daring;  and,  for  the  last  two  years 
or  "seasons"  before  our  arrival,  the  whalers  had  com- 
pletely failed  in  effecting  a  passage. 

I  have  been  surprised  that  this  region  has  been  so 
little  attended  to  by  the  very  able  English  hydrogra- 
phers  who  have  visited  these  seas.  The  valuable 
"wind  and  current"  generalizations  of  Lieutenant 
Maury  would  be  especially  applicable  to  ice  naviga- 
tion, and  their  application  to  the  fishing  grounds  of 
Baffin's  Bay  would  be  a  matter  of  large  utilitarian  in- 
terest. The  commanders  of  the  whaling  ships  are  an 
intelligent  set  of  men,  and  they  have  acquired,  by  dint 
of  long  and  sometimes  dearly  bought  experience,  a 
valuable  tact  in  the  navigation  of  this  intricate  region. 
It  is  surely  to  be  regretted  that  the  materials  which 
they  could  furnish  have  not  yet  been  made  a  subject 
of  scientific  record  and  comparison.  Since  the  year 
1819,  from  which  we  may  date  the  opening  of  Mel- 
ville Bay,  no  less  than  210  vessels  have  been  dostroy- 
ed  in  attempting  it.i  passage ! 


MIDDLE   P\(K. 


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CHAPTER  XI. 

We  left  the  American  expedition  on  the  threshold 
of  the  ice  of  Melville  Bay,  immovahly  fixed,  to  all 
appearance,  in  the  middle  pack.  I  promised  at  that 
time  to  describe  the  sort  of  efforts  that  were  making 
for  its  release ;  but  I  shall  do  better,  perhaps,  by  giv- 
ing a  general  view  of  what  one  of  the  figures  of  speech 
allows  us  to  call  ice  navigation.  To  those  wlio  pre- 
fer a  more  specific  form  of  narrative,  I  give  the  choice 
of  dates  from  the  8th  to  the  29th  of  July,  and  permit 
them  to  be  assured  that  they  are  reading  the  story  of 
our  progress  for  the  day  they  have  clio     ii. 

Let  us  begin  by  imagining  a  vessel,  or,  for  variety, 
two  of  them,  speeding  along  at  eight  knots  an  hour, 
and  heading  directly  for  a  long,  low  margin  of  ice 
about  two  miles  off'.  "D'ye  see  any  opening?"  cries 
the  captain,  hailing  an  officer  on  the  foretopsail-yard. 
"Something  like  'a  lead'  a  little  to  leeward  of  that 
iceberg  on  our  port-bow."  In  a  little  while  we  near 
the  ice ;  our  light  sails  are  got  in,  our  commander 
taking  the  place  of  the  officer,  who  has  resumed  his 
station  on  the  deck. 

Before  you,  in  a  plain  of  solid  ice,  is  a  huge  iceberg, 
and  near  it  a  black,  zigzag  canal,  checkered  with  re- 
cent fragments. 

Now  commences  the  process  of  "  conning."  Such 
work  with  the  helm  is  not  often  seen  in  ordinary  seas. 
The  brig's  head  is  pointed  for  the  open  gap  ;  the  watch 


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81 


are  stationed  at  the  braces  ;  a  sort  of  silence  prevails. 
Presently  comes  down  the  stentorian  voice  of  our  com- 
mander, "  Ilard-a-starboard,"  and  at  the  same  moment 
the  yards  yield  to  the  ready  haul  at  the  braces.  The 
brig  turns  her  nose  into  a  sudden  indentation,  and 
bangs  her  quarter  against  a  big  lump  of  "  swashing" 
ice.  "  Steady  there !"  For  half  a  minute  not  a  sound, 
until  a  second  yell — "  Down,  down !  hard  down !"  and 
then  we  rub,  and  scrape,  and  jam,  and  thrust  aside, 
and  are  thrust  aside ;  but  somehow  or  other  find  our- 
selves in  an  open  canal,  losing  itself  in  the  distance. 
This  is  "  a  lead." 

As  we  move  on,  congratulating  ourselves — if  we 
think  about  the  thing  at  all — that  we  are  "  good"  for 
a  few  hundred  yards  more,  a  sudden  exclamation,  ad- 
dressed to  nobody,  but  sufficiently  distinctive,  comes 
from  the  yard-arm  (we'll  call  it "  pshaw !"),  and,  look- 
ing ahead,  we  see  that  our  "  lead"  is  getting  narrower, 
its  sides  edging  toward  each  other — it  is  losing  its 
straightness.  At  the  same  moment  comes  a  complica- 
ted  succession  of  ordt  s :  "  Helm-a-starboard  !"  "  Port !" 
"  Easy  !"  ''  So  !"  «  Steiidie-ee-ee .'"  "  Hard-a-port !" 
"  Hard,  hard,  hard !"  (scrape,  scratch,  thump !)  "  Eugh !" 
an  anomalous  grunt,  and  we  are  jammed  fast  between 
two  great  ice-fields  of  unknown  extent.  The  captain 
comes  down,  and  we  all  go  quietly  to  supper. 

Next  come  some  processes  unconnected  with  the 
sails,  our  wings.  These  will  explain,  after  Arctic 
fashion,  the  terms  "  heave,"  and  "  warp,"  and  "  track," 
and  "  haul,"  for  we  are  now  beset  in  ice,  and  what  lit- 
tle wind  we  have  is  dead  ahead.  A  couple  of  hands;, 
under  orders,  of  course,  seize  an  iron  hook  or  "  ice-an- 
chor," of  which  we  have  two  sizes,  one  of  forty,  'ond 
another  of  about  a  hundred  pounds.     With  this  they 

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82 


HEAVING. 


ill-i^-: 


jump  from  the  bows,  and  "plant  it"  in  the  ice 
ahead,  close  to  the  edge  of  the  crack,  along 
which  we  wish  to  force  our  way.  To  plant 
an  ice-anchor,  a  hole  is  cut  obliquely  to  the 
surface  of  the  floe,  either  with  "n  ice-chisel,  or 
with  the  anchor  itself  used  pickaxe  fashion, 
and  into  this  hole  the  larger  curve  of  the  an- 
chor is  hooked.     Once  fast,  you  slip  a  hawser 


around  its  smaller  end,  and  secure  it  from 
=  slips  by  a  "mousing"  of  rope-yarn.  The  slack 
i  of  the  hawser  is  passed  around  the  shaft  of  our 
patent  winch — an  apparatus  of  cogs  and  levers 
standing  in  our  bows — and  every  thing,  in  far 
less  time  than  it  has  taken  me  to  describe  it, 
is  ready  for  "  heaving." 

Then  comes  the  hard  work,  i  ue  hawser  is 
hauled  taut ;  the  strain  is  increased ;  every 
body,  captain,  cook,  steward,  and  doctor,  is  tak- 
ing a  spell  at  the  "  pump  handles"  or  overhaul- 
ing the  warping  gear ;  for  dignity  does  not  take 
care  of  its  hands  in  the  middle  pack ;  until 
at  last,  if  the  floes  be  not  too  obdurate,  they 
separate  by  the  wedge  action  of  our  bows,  and 
we  force  our  way  into  a  little  cleft,  which  is 
kept  open  on  either  side  by  the  vessel's  beam. 
13ut  the  quiescence,  the  equilibrium  of  the  ice,  which 
allows  it  to  be  thus  severed  at  its  line  of  junction, 
is  rare  enough.  Oftentimes  we  heave,  and  haul,  and 
sweat,  and,  after  parting  a  ten-inch  hawser,  go  to  bed 


TRACKING. 


83 


wet,  and  tired,  and  discontented,  with  nothing  but  ex- 
perience to  pay  for  our  toil.     This  is  "  warping." 

But  let  us  suppose  that,  after  many  hours  of  this 
sort  of  unprofitable  labor,  the  floes  release  their  press- 
ure, or  the  ice  becomes  frail  and  light.  "  Get  ready 
the  lines !"  Out  jumps  an  unfortunate  with  a  forty- 
pound  "  hook"  upon  his  shoulder,  and,  after  one  or  two 
duckings,  tumbles  over  the  ice  and  plants  his  anchor 
on  a  distant  cape,  in  line  with  our  wished-for  direction. 
The  poor  fellow  has  done  more  than  carry  his  anchor ; 
for  a  long  white  cord  has  been  securely  fastened  to  it, 
which  they  "  pay  out"  from  aboard  ship  as  occasion 
requires.  This  is  a  whale-line — cordage  thin,  light, 
strong,  and  of  the  best  material.  It  passes  inboard 
through  a  block,  and  then,  with  a  few  artistic  turns, 
around  the  capstan.  Its  "  slack"  or  loose  end  is  car- 
ried to  a  little  windlass  at  our  main-mast.  Now  comes 
the  warping  again.  The  first  or  heavy  warping  we 
called  "  heaving:"  this  last  is  a  civilized  performance; 
"all  hands"  walking  round  with  the  capstan-bars  to 
the  click  of  its  iron  pauls,  or  else,  if  the  watch  be  fresh, 
to  a  jolly  chorus  of  sailors'  songs. 

We  have  made  a  few  hundred  yards  of  this  light 
warping,  when  the  floes,  never  at  rest,  open  into  a  tort- 
uous canal  again.  We  can  dispense  with  the  slow 
traction  of  the  capstan.  The  same  whale-line  is 
passed  out  ahead,  and  a  party  of  human  horses  take 
us  in  tow.  Each  man — or  horse,  if  you  please — has 
a  canvas  strap  passing  over  his  shoulder  and  fastened 
to  the  tow-line  ;  or,  nautically,  as  this  is  a  chapter  ex- 
planatory of  terms,  "  toggled  to  the  warp."  This  har- 
nessing is  no  slight  comfort  to  hands  wet  with  water 
at  the  freezing  point ;  and  with  its  aid  they  tug  along, 


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WttSTIR.N.Y.  USM 

(716)172-4303 


84 


IMPRISONED. 


sometimes  at  a  weary  walk,  and  sometimes  at  a  dog- 
trot.    This  is  "  tracking." 

When  we  could  neither  "  heave,"  nor  "  warp,"  nor 
"  track,"  nor  sail,  we  resorted  to  all  sorts  of  useless  ex- 
pedients, such  as  sawing,  cutting,  and  vainly  striving 
to  force  our  way  into  a  more  hopeful  neighborhood. 
It  was  long  before  experience  taught  us  to  spare  our- 
selves this  useless  labor,  and  even  after  we  had  become 
convinced  that  the  periods  for  effective  effort  of  this 
sort  were  so  few  and  far  between,  it  was  hard  for  men 
of  our  temperaments  to  await  idly  a  change  for  better 
things. 

We  were  twenty-one  days  thus  imprisoned,  never 
leaving  a  little  circle  of  some  six  miles  radius,  and 
measuring  our  progress  by  yards  and  feet  rather  than 
by  miles.  For  the  rest,  my  journal  must  give  its  own 
picture  of  this  season  of  "  besetment." 


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devii.'h  thumb. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

"Jm/^  10.  For  the  past  twenty-four  hours  helplessly 
fast,  unahle  to  move  in  any  direction  more  than  twen- 
ty yards.  The  wind,  which  had  been  from  the  north- 
east, hauled  yesterday  afternoon  to  the  westward, 
since  when,  blowing  at  times  quite  freshly,  it  has  ac- 
quired more  and  more  southing,  till  it  has  got  round 
to  southwest  by  west.  From  the  commencement  of 
this  change  to  this  moment,  the  pack  has  been  stead- 
ily closing,  becoming  more  and  more  impenetrable. 

"  Now  I  begin  to  realize  some  of  the  scenes  de- 
scribed in  polar  travel.  Go  up  to  the  foretop,  a  height 
of  eighty-five  feet,  and  the  entire  horizon  is  snow-cov- 
ered ice.  Here  and  there  a  very  distant  berg  breaks 
the  uniformity,  but  the  hummocks  and  the  water-pools 
are  softened  down  by  the  distance  into  one  plane  sur- 


^i 


86 


SEALS. 


face  of  cold  white,  and,  except  to  landward,  there  is 
nothing  to  arrest  the  eye. 

"  This  shore,  however,  although  fifty  miles  off,  is 
visihle  enough,  showing  throughout  all  the  hours  of 
our  now  perpetual  day  a  tall  peak,  rising  like  a  light- 
house from  a  group  of  hills.  This  striking  landmark 
is  called  the  '  Devil's  Thumb.' 

"Juli/ 11.  The  wind  changed  at  8  A.M.,  coming  from 
the  northward  and  eastward ;  but  the  pack  seems  as 
yet  uninfluenced.  We  are  hemmed  in  as  closely  as 
ever. 

"  Last  night  Lieutenant  De  Haven,  who  had  been 
fixedly  examining  an  object  between  us  and  the  shore, 
passed  the  glass  to  me,  with  the  question, '  What  do 
you  make  of  that  ?'  Without  any  hesitation,  I  an- 
swered, *A  mast,  with  gaff  and  main-sail  partially 
clewed  up.'  It  seemed  to  me  that  one  of  the  Danish 
foru-and-aft  schooners  had  anchored  at  the  edge  of  the 
pack,  or  just  within  it.  Our  commander  thought  so 
too ;  but  a  glance  through  a  Fraunhofer  telescope 
showed  it  to  be  a  mere  freak  of  refraction. 

"Several  seals  were  seen  upon  the  more  distant 
floes,  but,  in  spite  of  all  my  efforts,  I  could  not  approach 
near  enough  for  a  shot.  They  are  always  on  the  alert, 
and  at  the  slightest  suspicion  betake  themselves  to 
their  holes.  The  Esquimau ix  use  a  canvas  frame  or 
screen,  which  they  move  before  their  persons,  and,  by 
a  patient  process  of  stalking,  succeed  in  getting  with- 
in rifle  shot.  The  Danish  company  supply  them  with 
arms,  and  they  seldom  miss  their  aim.  I  managed  to 
get  sufliciently  close  to  recognize  two  species — the 
Greenland  Saddle -back  and  the  Vituline  (Phoca 
Groenlandica  and  P.  vitulina) ;  but  strange  to  say,  the 
Rough  seal,  the  Phoca  fcetida  of  the  Greenland  fau- 


SEALS BIRDS. 


8f 


na,  of  which  we  had  seen  so  many,  was  not  with 
them. 

"  With  a  good  glass,  you  may  study  these  animals 
in  their  natural  habitudes  undisturbed  by  suspicion. 
As  thus  seen,  in  the  centre  of  a  large  floe,  and  within 
retreating  distance  of  his  hole,  the  seal  is  a  perfect  pic- 
ture of  solitary  enjoyment,  rolling  not  unlike  a  horse 
stretching  his  hide,  awkwardly  spreading  out  his  flip- 
pers, and  twisting  his  rump  toward  his  head.  Again 
he  will  wriggle  about  in  the  most  grotesque  manner 
— the  sailors  call  it '  squirming' — every  now  and  then 
rubbing  his  head  against  the  snow.  The  shapes  of  a 
seal,  or  rather  his  aspects,  are  full  of  strange  variety. 
At  a  side  view,  with  his  caudal  end  slued  round  to  the 
side  from  you,  and  his  head  lifted  suspiciously  in  the 
air,  he  is  the  exact  image  of  a  dog — Chien  de  mer. 
During  his  wriggles,  he  resembles  a  great  snail :  a  lit- 
tle while  after,  he  turns  his  back  to  you,  and  rises  up 
on  his  side  flippers  like  a  couching  hunter  preparing 
for  a  shot,  the  very  image  of  an  Esquimaux. 

"  It  is  said  by  the  systematic  writers  that  the  ice- 
hole  of  the  Vituline  seal  is  often  used  by  several  of 
them  in  common.  This  was  not  conflrmed  by  our  ob- 
servations while  in  the  pack.  Each  animal  seemed 
to  have  its  separate  hole,  though  two  of  them  would 
occasionally  be  close  to  one  another.  ; 

"  The  Bearded  seal  (P.  barbata)  attains  a  greater 
size  than  any  of  these.  Two  overgrown  obese  mon- 
sters were  seen  at  a  distance.  They  are  regarded  by 
the  Danes  as  diflering  only  in  age  from  the  Greenland 
seal  (P.  Groenlandica),  the  lighter  color  and  greater 
flneness  of  the  fur  being  a  universal  accompaniment 
of  youth. 

"  I  shot  to-day  several  specimens  of  the  white  gull 


Hi 


■^1 


J!I 


!ii: 


ii' 


88 


SLOW    PROGRESS. 


of  Baffin's  Bay,  well  called  the  Ivory  {Larus  eburne- 
vs).  It  is  a  singularly  beautiful  bird,  so  faultless  in  its 
purity  of  white  as  to  be  descried  with  difficulty  on  the 
surface  of  the  snow.  The  legs,  which  are  deep  black, 
are  all  that  you  see  at  a  little  distance.  A  specimen 
shot  a  few  days  afterward  had  numerous  ash-colored 
spots  on  the  wings  and  shoulders,  perhaps  immature 
markings. 

"  In  addition  to  the  Ivory,  I  have  noticed,  since  our 
entry  into  the  pack,  the  Silvery  and  Burgomaster  gulls 
( L.  argentatus  and  L.  glaucus ),  but  the  kittiwakes 
(L.  tridactylus)  have  disappeared.  The  moUemokes 
are  still  abundant.  Two  terns,  one  the  Sterna  arctica, 
the  other  unrecognized,  with  a  solitary  Lestris  (L. par- 
asitica), complete  our  catalogue  of  birds. 

"  The  Aneroid  index  now  stands  at  29"  05',  correct- 
ed— lower  than  it  has  been  since  leaving  New  York. 

"c/w/y  12.  The  changes  in  the  ice  since  dinner  have 
been  such  as  to  invito  us  to  renewed  exertion.  They 
were  indeed  protean ;  the  pack  was  not  the  same  for 
ten  minutes  together.  Go  below,  congratulating  your- 
self on  the  headway  you  are  making,  and  when  you 
come  back  you  are  hopelessly  *  fast.'  Go  down  again 
to  chronicle  your  vexation,  and  you  are  surrounded  by 
open  leads  before  you  have  put  away  your  journal. 
Stranger  still  is  the  uncertain  influence  of  warping. 
A  single  whale-line  will  sometimes  force  the  brig  into 
a  barely  perceptible  crevice,  enlarging  it  into  a '  track- 
able'  canal,  while  in  another  attempt  a  four-inch 
hawser  will  be  stranded  without  producing  the  slight- 
est effect. 

"  This  afternoon  before  we  began  our  work,  except 
that  the  water-pools  had  become  larger  and  more  fre- 
quent, you  would  not  at  first  glance  have  detected  any 


A    BEAR. 


89 


change ;  but  by  fixing  the  eye  carefully  and  continu> 
ously  upon  a  line  in  advance  of  us,  where  an  old  lead 
had  closed  two  days  before,  you  could  perceive  a  very 
slight  separation.  The  closed  line  had  become  a  crack 
at  least  three  or  four  inches  wide.  On  our  sending 
out  a  hawser  to  a  solid  floe  ahead,  and  heaving  in  with 
the  patent  windlass,  a  distinct  movement  was  seen  in 
the  floe.  The  aperture,  at  first  a  mere  crack,  widen- 
ed to  a  couple  of  feet,  dividing,  as  it  did  so,  two  fields 
of  at  least  twenty  acres  area.  The  traction  continu- 
ing, our  wedge-shaped  bows  insinuated  themselves 
into  a  self-made  channel,  and,  acquiring  new  momen- 
tum, we  forced  a  barrier  ahead,  dragging  the  Rescue 
after  us.  Such  instances  illustrate  strikingly  the  ef- 
fects of  a  constant  force  upon  large  masses  in  equili- 
brium. To  the  eye  it  would  seem  impossible  to  influ- 
ence by  such  means  fields  of  ice  weighing  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  tons.  Yet,  in  the  nicely  poised  con- 
dition of  the  floes,  they  invariably  yield  to  continued 
traction. 

"  While  working  with  the  rest  of  the  crew  upon  the 
ice,  I  was  startled  by  a  cry  of  '  bear.'  Sure  enough 
it  was  that  menagerie  wonder.  Not,  however,  the 
sleepy  thing  which,  with  begrimed  hair,  and  subdued, 
dirty  face,  appeals  to  your  sympathies  as  he  walks  the 
endless  rounds  of  a  wet  cage.  Our  first  polar  bear 
moved  past  us  on  the  floes,  a  short  half  mile  off",  with 
the  leisurely  march  of  fearless  freedom.  He  was  a 
bear  of  the  first  magnitude,  about  nine  feet  long,  as 
we  afterward  found  by  measuring  his  tracks.  His 
length  appeared  to  us  still  greater  than  this,  for  he 
carried  his  head  and  neck  on  a  line  with  the  long  axis 
of  his  body.  His  color,  as  defined  upon  the  white 
snow,  was  a  delicate  yellow — not  tawny,  but  a  true 


i  I 


m 


A    BEAR. 


fill 


w 


ochre  or  gamboge — and  his  black,  blue-black,  nose 
looked  abrupt  and  accidental.  His  haunches  wrere 
regularly  arched,  and,  supported  as  they  were  on  pon* 
derous  legs,  gave  him  an  almost  elephantine  look. 
The  movements  of  the  animal  were  peculiar.  A  sort 
of  drawling  dignity  seemed  to  oppress  him,  and  to  for- 
bid his  lifting  his  august  legs  higher  than  was  abso- 
lutely necessary.  It  might  have  been  an  instinctive 
philosophy  that  led  him  to  avoid  the  impact  of  his 
toes  upon  ice  of  uncertain  strength ;  but  whatever  it 
was,  he  reminded  me  of  a  colossal  puss  in  boots. 

"  I  will  not  dwell  upon  our  adventures,  as,  on  mur- 
derous thoughts  intent,  we  chased  this  bear.  We 
were  an  absurd  party  of  zealots,  rushing  pell-mell 
upon  the  floes  with  vastly  more  energy  than  discre- 
tion. While  walking  in  the  lightest  manner  over  sus- 
picious ice,  my  companion  next  in  line  behind  me  dis- 
appeared, gun  and  all ;  yet,  afler  getting  him  out,  we 
insanely  continued  our  chase  with  the  aid  of  boats. 
After  laboring  very  hard  for  about  three  hours,  repeat- 
ed duckings  in  water  at  30"  cooled  down  our  enthu- 
siasm. The  bear,  meantime,  never  varied  from  his  un- 
concerned walk.  We  saw  him  last  in  a  labyrinth  of 
hummock  ice. 

"  In  the  evening  it  blew  a  gale  from  the  southward 
and  eastward,  holding  on  until  midnight.  Strange  to 
say,  it  produced  no  marked  effects  on  the  pack.  At 
first  we  feared  a  nip,  for,  judging  from  the  wind  which 
swept  our  floes,  it  must  have  been  severe  in  the  open 
sea.  But  we  rode  it  out  in  our  icy  harbor  without  any 
trouble,  although  the  undulations  of  both  ice  and  wa- 
ter told  of  the  commotion  outside. 

"  Our  day's  progress  was  one  mile  and  a  half. 

"t/u/y  13.  Fast  again !  for,  except  that  mile  and  a 


FAST. 


91 


half  of  yesterday,  we  are  nearly  where  we  started  from. 
The  prevalent  winds  have  been  from  the  southward. 
Is  it  to  them  that  we  owe  our  exemption  from  the 
southeasterly  drift,  which  otherwise  we  had  been 
taught  to  expect  ? 

"  The  drift  of  the  surface  acalephse,  as  seen  in  the 
leads,  is  to  the  northward. 

"  Day  delightful,  crew  playing  foot-ball  and  running 
races  on  the  ice. 

"Ji/Zy  14-15.  The  American  expedition  advances 
half  a  ship's  length. 

"Jiw/y  16.  How  very  strange!  can  it  be  midsum- 
mer ?  The  ice  through  which  we  yesterday  attempt- 
ed to  work  our  way  was  from  two  to  four  feet  thick, 
and,  as  the  broken  fragments  closed  around  the  ves- 
sels, they  froze  into  a  solid  mass.  For  sixteen  hours 
the  thermometer  stood  below  the  freezing  point,  and 
the  mean  temperature  of  the  entire  day  was  but  34°  4\ 

"  The  sun  shines  always,  and,  except  when  in  his 
low  curve,  about  the  northern  meridian,  his  glare  is 
so  bright  that  we  go  about  in  owl-like  goggles,  that 
buckle  over  the  nose.  Yet,  with  all  this  light,  we  are 
fortunate  if  our  noonday  thermometers  give  us  40°. 

"  On  the  13th  two  vessels  were  •  litered  in  the  log- 
book as  seen  to  the  southward  an;  eastward,  on  the 
margin  of  the  pack.  On  the  15th  they  were  observed 
to  have  changed  their  bearings,  thus  proving  that  it 
was  not  a  freak  of  refraction.  On  the  16th  five  were 
reported ;  as  nearly  as  we  could  make  out,  one  ship, 
a  brig,  and  three  barques.  They  proved  to  be  whal- 
ers, returning  from  their  unsuccessful  attempt  to  pen- 
etrate Melville  Bay  to  the  North  Water. 

"Ji//y  17.  New  ice  forming  constantly  in  the  little 
pool  which  holds  our  vessels.    This  morning  it  was 


rlili 


I 

Til 


i.W 


FAST    ENOUGH. 


half  an  inch  thick.  This  process  of  cementing  going 
on  in  the  month  of  July  looks  discouraging.  We  have 
now  been  ten  days  beset ;  and,  with  the  exception  of 
the  12th,  when  an  unusual  wind  slightly  afl'ected  our 
ice,  we  have  advanced  but  little  more  than  a  couple 
of  ship's  lengths.  Indeed,  for  the  past  five  days,  our 
progress  has  been  absolutely  nothing;  for,  although 
our  daily  observations  prove  that  the  great  pack  is  in 
motion,  our  relative  position  remains  unchanged,  in 
four  days  we  have  made  about  four  miles  of  southerly 
drift,  and  to-day  our  chronometers  indicate  another 
four  to  the  west.  How  very  sad  it  would  be  to  remain 
prison-bound  in  this  icy  prairie  until  the  season  of 
search  has  passed  by !  Certain  it  is  that  some  great 
commotion  must  influence  this  ice,  if  it  is  ever  to  lib- 
erate us,  for  upon  thaws  we  can  place  no  reliance. 

"  To-day  we  organized  foot-races,  and  our  friends  of 
the  Rescue  had  a  regular  divertissement  of  single-stick, 
foot-ball,  and  fancy  matches  against  time.  Our  best 
runner  made  his  mile  in  seven  minutes  eleven  seconds. 

"July  18.  To-day  is  our  eleventh  day  since  enter- 
ing the  ice,  our  sixth  of  nearly  absolute  immobility. 
We  made,  however,  two  ship's  lengths  by  alternate 
warping  and  cutting  through  ice  three  feet  thick. 
Our  incessant  exertions  have  fatigued  us:  we  have 
already  parted  four  cables  by  heaving;  fortunately  no- 
body injured. 

"  I  took  to-day  a  long  gun- walk,  bringing  back  a 
couple  of  tern  and  some  gulls.  Our  commander 
counted  from  aloft  nearly  a  hundred  seals,  distributed 
listlessly  over  the  ice.  I  have  tried  in  vain  to  stalk 
them. 

"  Jiw/y  19.  The  men  turned  in  at  midnight,  to  awake 
again  at  six.    All  hands  are  pretty  well  used  up. 


HEAVING. 


93 


"  Ahead  of  us  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards  is  a  sheet 
of  water,  which  some  of  us  have  called  'the  lake.' 
During  the  processes  by  which  the  various  floes  of  the 
great  pack  have  been  condensed  into  one  unbroken 
level,  some  peculiarity  in  the  shape  of  the  floes  has 
rescued  here  and  there  a  little  of  the  mother  element, 
leaving  it  in  the  form  of  open  pools  or  lakes.  These 
form  the  radiating  centres  of  the  leads,  which  are  now 
our  only  avenues  of  escape.  It  is  toward  one  of  them 
that  our  eflbrts  of  progress  are  directed.  If  we  reach 
it  to-night,  we  may  make  a  good  mile  on  our  dreary 
course.  Such  is  our  immovable  besetment,  that  we 
look  to  '  a  mile'  as  a  marked  progress. 

"  Our  men  are  now  '  all  hands'  at  the  windlass,  sing- 
ing and  heaving,  '  rousing  her  home.'  The  strain  is 
sometimes  enormous,  but  there  is  no  remedy:  it  is 
tug  or  stick.  We  have  parted  two  hawsers  already, 
and,  although  some  half  dozen  strong  men  take  charge 
of  the  slack,  the  great  cable  sometimes  surges  from 
the  snatch  with  such  force  and  speed  that  clouds  of 
smoke  arise  from  the  friction. 

"  Sending  out  or  '  planting'  these  cables  is  an  oper- 
ation of  no  little  danger.  The  ice  is  very  varying  in 
its  thickness  and  tenacity,  and  long  detours  are  nec- 
essary before  the  anchor  can  be  placed  in  the  desired 
position.  On  such  parties  a  ducking  is  an  expected 
consummation ;  and  more  than  once  I  have  seen  both 
man  and  anchor  suddenly  disappear  together.  It  is 
often  necessary,  also,  to  clear  or  straighten  the  haws- 
er after  its  attachment,  for  the  hummocks  and  other 
projections  catch  the  rope,  and,  unless  released,  would 
divert  the  line  of  traction  from  the  required  direction. 
On  such  occasions  the  men  must  crawl,  jump,  wade, 
or  swim  to  clear  the  *  slack.'    Operations  like  this  are 


04 


ANOTHER    BEAR. 


PHI 


i' 


severe  trials,  both  of  energy  and  health  ;  more  severe, 
I  sometimes  think,  than  any  which  are  encountered 
in  the  systematic  explorations  of  the  British  voyagers. 

"Juli/  20.  We  failed  to  reach  the  'lake'  yesterday, 
gaining  it  to-day.  We  cast  off  from  the  Rescue  and 
made  three  minutes  and  twenty  seconds  of  sail,  meas- 
ured by  a  Parkinson  and  Frodsham  chronometer ! 
That  over,  we  are  again  wedged  in  ice. 

"  Our  commander,  who  had  heretofore  miraculously 
escaped  his  ducking,  while  standing  upon  a  miniature 
South  America  of  ice,  punching  with  a  boat-hook  at 
a  little  Cape  Horn,  went  down  suddenly  this  morning, 
leaving  a  Terra  del  Fuego  of  slush  and  water  to  mark 
the  place  where  he  had  been.  He  had  some  trouble 
in  scrambling  out. 

"A  short  time  after  this,  while  we  were  joking  about 
his  adventure  over  a  quiet  little  noggin  of  whisky- 
punch,  Mr.  Boatswain  Brooks,  a  capital  seaman,  who 
did  watch  duties  on  board  the  Rescue,  whispered  down 
the  hatchway,  'A  bear  along  side !'  This  time  the  ras- 
cal was  right  aboard  of  us,  and  we  kept  below  the  bul- 
warks, so  that  his  wanderings  were  rather  matters  of 
caprice  th^^^n  of  fear. 

"  He  was  a  young  animal,  not  more  than  six  or  sev- 
en feet  in  length,  with  a  color  even  more  delicately 
tinted  than  the  other,  for  the  yellow  was  only  appar- 
ent at  the  armpits,  haunches,  and  spinal  ridge;  his 
muzzle,  lips,  and  dew-laps  were  of  dark  purple. 

"  When  first  seen  he  rose  upon  his  hind  palms,  and, 
lifling  his  neck  in  the  direction  of  our  brig,  snuffed 
the  air  inspectingly.  Satisfied  with  our  appearance, 
he  walked  well  within  shot;  but  iust  as  we  were 
about  to  reward  his  confidence  with  a  bullet,  he  gam- 
boled off  to  a  neighboring  hummock.     The  poor  fel- 


NO    PROGRESS. 


9d 


low  had  such  a  look  of  life  enjoyment  that  I  felt  glad 
that  I  had  not  fired,  although  my  hand  was  upon  the 
trigger. 

"  Once  upon  this  little  hill  of  ice,  he  was  at  home 
again,  favoring  us  with  some  hear  play,  snapping  at 
the  inoffending  icicles,  ruhhing  his  mouth  sideways 
against  the  snow,  and  rolling  over  and  over  from  top 
to  hottom.  I  mention  all  these  as  characteristics  of 
the  animal.  Of  course  we  chased  him,  and  of  course 
we  failed.  We  had  not  yet  acquired  our  experience 
as  hear  hunters. 

"Tw/y  21.  It  rained  yesterday,  and  the  ice  is  per- 
ceptibly affected.  These  rains,  of  which  we  have  now 
had  several,  exercise  a  very  rapid  influence  upon  the 
weaker  floes. 

"Heaving,  boring,  sailing,  but  no  progress  worth 
noting ! 

"Jw/y  22.  As  we  were  in  the  act  of  warping  into  a 
narrow  chasm,  the  capricious  ice  closed  in  upon  us, 
nipping  us  on  our  counter,  and  heaping  up  some  two 
feet. 

"  We  filled  our  water  casks  from  a  pool  in  a  glued- 
up  iceberg,  and  saw  another  bear !  We  were  too  wise 
this  time  to  chase  him. 

"  Our  progress — not  to  be  measured  by  yards." 


'I    I 

I 


1H 


1 

i; 

I' 

'  1^^^^^ 

Tm^if 

i 

iJi'l 

ll: 

||:| 

'! ; 

1 

i 

i| 

\ 

Ki 

i 

i' 

1    ' 

,*'< 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

I  HAVE  continued  my  journal  long  enough  to  prove 
the  wearying  sameness  of  our  days.  I  wish  now  to 
say  a  few  words  about  the  local  characters  of  the  seat 
of  our  imprisonment. 

The  ice  was  of  several  kinds.  One  was  the  true 
material  of  the  winter  floe,  varying  in  thickness  from 
seven  feet  to  as  many  inches.  This  was  snow-cover- 
ed, patched  by  fresh  water-pools,  and  suflficiently  un- 
altered to  retain  its  crystalline  structure  in  full  integ- 
rity. When  it  was  over  two  feet  in  thickness,  por- 
tions taken  from  its  surface  gave  no  evidence  of  salt 
under  the  test  of  nitrate  of  silver. 

A  second  ice  I  have  called  ^/ater-sodden.  It  sel- 
dom exceeded  a  foot  in  thickness,  but  war  irregularly 
thawed  in  patches  and  striated  lines.  7 ,  was  thor- 
oughly infiltrated  with  salt  water,  and  b  >ke  readily 
under  a  blow,  displaying  at  the  lines  of    acture  the 


vertical  prisms  of  its  crystalline  structure.     This  ice 
formed  the  basis  of  the  pack ;  and  although,  by  select- 


SNOW    ICE. 


97 


i 


ing  our  pathway,  it  could  be  traversed  on  foot,  it  was 
irregular  and  unsafe.  It  cracked  readily  before  the 
wedge-action  of  our  bows. 

A  third  variety  of  ice  was  the  honey-combed  or  eel- 
lular,  seen  beneath  the  surface  in  crude,  olive-green 
masses.  This  ice,  though  generally  verjr  tenacious, 
was  sometimes  so  soft  that  you  could  plunge  a  boat- 
hook  through  it.  It  resembled  a  grossly-cellular  Par- 
mesan cheese. 
A  fourth  was  as  finely  granulated  as  loaf-sugar,  yet 

as  tough  as  whitleather.  Al- 
though thoroughly  permeated 
with  water,  it  was  as  unyielding 
as  asphalt.  We  were  often  help- 
lessly impacted  in  its  insidious 
rottenness.  It  would  neither 
fracture  nor  give.  A  cutting  instrument  pierced  it 
like  a  cork,  leaving  a  merely  local  puncture,  and  it 
differed  so  little  in  specific  gravity  from  the  water  as 
to  remain  almost  suspended. 

But  the  surface  of  all  this  diversity  was  mantled 
over  by  the  leading  feature  of  our  prospect,  snow ;  not 
snow  as  at  home,  with  rounded  hill  slope  and  gestic- 
ulating tree,  but  a  surface  deprived  of  all  variety  save 
such  as  resides  in  itself  This  is  not  so  scanty  as  one 
might  at  first  suppose,  for  it  rises  into  hummocks,  which 
impress  their  shadows  on  the  ice ;  it  thaws,  and  black 
pools  eat  themselves  into  its  level  wastes ;  it  freezes 
again,  and  bright  silver  streaks  run  like  metal  rivers 
along  the  leads.  The  winds,  too,  which  drive  into  one 
this  great  mass  of  floating  fields,  leave  here  and  there 
little  areas  protected  by  icy  edges.  These  lake-like 
pools  are  haunts  of  the  seal  and  the  diver.  I  have 
often  observed  the  white  lip  of  the  snow  at  the  mar- 
gin of  them  reflected  in  the  water  of  a  marked  claret 


|ij!it ' 


98 


CURRENTS. 


color,  the  shades  varying  from  a  rose-pink  to  a  de- 
cided red.  For  a  long  time  I  supposed  these  reflected 
images  to  he  real,  till  one  day  the  captain,  calling  my 
attention  to  this  "  red  ice,"  thrust  a  hoat-hook  at  it,  and 
cried  out  that  it  was  a  reflection.  This  reflected  im- 
age is  generally  very  well  defined,  and  heneath  it  there 
is  sometimes  a  second  image  of  a  hluish  tinge.  The 
explanation  is  at  once  suggested  hy  the  fact. 

The  movements  of  this  aggregated  plain  upon  itself 
are  even  more  incapahle  of  analysis  than  the  great 
general  laws  of  its  drift. 

I  spent  many  days  in  trying  to  determine  the  sur- 
face currents  hy  the  movements  of  the  acalephse,  es- 
pecially the  clios,  in  the  leads ;  hut  the  disturbing  in- 
fluences of  the  floes  moving  upon  each  other  prevented 
any  reliable  deductions.  Camphor  floats  were  equally 
deceptive,  probably  from  the  same  cause. 

I  found,  however,  that  there  existed  in  nearly  every 
case  a  second  current,  some  one  or  two  fathoms  be- 
low the  first,  and  that  the  upper  of  them  generally 
followed  the  direction  of  the  wind ;  so  that  I  regarded 
it  at  last  as  a  tolerable  index  of  the  surface  drift.  The 
second  or  inferior  current  is  more  difldcult  to  explain 
by  rule.  It  is  influenced,  of  course,  by  the  shape  of 
the  floes,  their  various  deflecting  angles,  the  degrees 
of  resistance  they  exert,  as  determined  by  their  weight 
and  mass,  and  no  doubt  by  other  causes  of  which  we 
are  ignorant. 

Taken  in  connection  with  the  great  general  move- 
ment of  the  pack,  these  currents  form  a  complicated 
problem  of  high  practical  interest  to  those  who  navi- 
gate in  the  ice.  But  its  solution  must  be  reserved  for 
scientific  men.  Much  as  I  respect  the  ice-masters,  the 
Greenland  pilots  as  they  are  termed,  who  have  devoted 
their  lives  to  its  practical  study.  I  confess  that  I  am  al- 


FISH. 


together  skeptical  as  to  their  ability  to  generalize  in  an 
area  like  this.  Even  the  general  axis  of  motion,  the 
trend  of  the  pack,  can  seldom  be  ascertained.  I  have 
seen  the  ice  open  into  parallel  and  transverse  canals 
from  horizon  to  horizon;  and  a  few  moments  after- 
ward, without  any  observed  changes  of  current,  wind, 
or  temperature,  these  canals  would  rapidly  become  cur- 
vilinear, and  we  seemed  as  if  in  the  centre  of  a  great 
system  of  rotation. 

Since  our  entry  into  the  ice,  we  were  comparatively 
without  visits  from  birds.  The  ducks  had  deserted  us ; 
but  the  red-throated  diver  [Colymhus  septentrionalis, 
Temm.)  abounded  in  the  larger  openings.  The  black 
guillemots  (Uria  grylle,  Temm.)  sometimes  passed 
us  in  groups,  or  were  started  up  in  the  leads.  We 
missed  the  kittiwake.  The  LaridsB  were  represented 
only  by  the  Glaucous  and  Ivory  gulls.  These  last  were 
in  company  with  tern,  and  flew  over  the  floes  seeking 
the  refuse  of  our  vessels.  The  strong  and  graceful 
flight  which  distinguishes  the  gulls  is  especially  evi- 
dent in  the  Ivory  variety — without  exception,  the  most 
attractive  bird  I  ever  saw.  The  Fulmar  petrel,  a  sol- 
itary jager  (Lestris  parasitica),  the  Stunt  jager  of  Mar- 
ten, one  "boatswain,"  a  bird  which  I  had  not  previous- 
ly seen,  except  in  company  with  the  Tridaccyl  gull — 
these  complete  the  list. 

The  only  fish  we  met  with  at  this  time  was  the 
Merlangus  polaris  of  Parry's  first  voyage.  We  caught 
it  often  in  the  surface  pools  that  adjoined  the  leads. 
It  never  exceeded  six  inches  in  length.  From  these  I 
obtained  some  specimens  of  lernians.  Strange  to  say, 
no  less  than  three  individuals  were  noticed  with  these 
parasites,  and  in  one  the  dorsal  ridge  was  completely 
covered  with  them. 


111! 


I:' 


» 


I'll  ' 


'»4  .ti.  ' 


11 '■ 


GNTEBINO   MELVILLE   BAT. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


Our  position,  on  entering  this  pack  twenty-one  days 
ago,  was  latitude  74°  08',  longitude  59°  04'.  Our  ob- 
servations now  gave  us  a  latitude  of  73°  54',  longitude 
60°  06' — an  average  progress  of  about  a  mile  a  day. 
We  had  therefore  been  three  weeks  completely  im- 
prisoned, and  the  season  for  useful  search  was  rapidly 
flitting  by,  when,  on  the  27th  of  July,  came  the  dawn- 
ing promise  of  escape. 

A  steady  breeze  had  been  blowing  for  several  days 
from  the  r  orthward  and  westward,  and  under  its  in- 
fluence  tho  ice  had  so  relaxed,  that,  had  not  the  wind 
been  dead  ahead,  we  should  have  attempted  sails. 
Our  floe  surface,  disturbed  by  these  new  influences, 
gave  us  a  constantly-shifting  topography.  It  was  cu- 
rious to  see  the  rapidity  of  the  transformations.     At 


'ii 


BORING. 


101 


one  moment  we  were  closed  in  by  ice  three  feet  thick, 
with  a  worn-down  berg  fifty  feet  deep  on  our  beam ; 
our  bows  buried  in  hummocky  masses,  and  our  stern- 
post  cloggfed  with  frozen  sludge :  in  ten  minutes  open 
lanes  were  radiating  from  us  in  every  direction,  cracks 
becoming  rivers,  and  puddles  lakes:  warping  ahead 
for  five  minutes,  every  thing  around  us  was  ice  again. 

But  changes  were  going  on.  The  sky  had  become 
lowering,  the  gulls  had  left  us,  and  the  barometer  had 
fallen  eight  tenths  since  the  day  before. 

Late  on  the  afternoon  of  the  28th,  after  another  long 
day  of  unprofitable  warping,  the  wind  shifted  to  the 
eastward.  The  floes  opened  still  wider,  something 
like  water  was  visible  to  the  north  and  east,  and  at  9h. 
30m.  P.M.  we  "  cast  ofi","  set  our  main-sail,  and,  with 
feelings  of  joyous  relief,  began  to  bore  the  ice.  This 
wind  soon  freshened  to  a  southeaster,  and  we  dashed 
along  to  the  northeast  in  a  sea  studded  with  icebergs. 
Broken  floes  running  out  into  "  streams"  were  on  all 
sides  of  us ;  but,  only  too  glad  to  be  once  more  free,  we 
bored  through  them  for  the  inshore  circuit  of  Melville 
Bav. 

After  a  little  while  the  horizon  thickened ;  and  al- 
though our  wind,  surrounded  as  we  were  by  ice,  could 
hardly  be  called  a  gale,  heavy  undulations  began  to 
set  in,  making  an  uncomfortable  sea,  rendered  danger- 
ous indeed  by  the  swashing  ice  and  a  growing  fog. 

The  ice,  too,  after  a  little  while,  was  no  longer  the 
rotten,  half-thawed  material  of  the  middle  pack,  but 
heavy  floes  eight  or  ten  feet  of  solid  thickness,  which 
seemed  to  stand  out  from  the  shore. 

Presently  we  found  ourselves,  urged  by  wind  and 
sea,  on  a  lee  ridge  of  undulating  fragments.  There 
was  no  help  for  it :  with  grinding  crash  we  entered  its 


■i 


m 


102 


MELVILLE    BAY. 


tumultuous  margin.  Before  we  had  bored  into  it  more 
than  ten  yards,  we  were  on  the  edge  of  a  nearly  sub- 
merged iceberg,  which,  not  being  large  enough  to  re- 
sist the  swell,  rolled  fearfully.  The  sea  dashed  in  an 
angry  surf  over  its  inclined  sides,  rattling  the  icy  frag- 
ments or  "  brash"  against  its  irregular  surface.  Our 
position  reminded  me  of  the  scenes  so  well  described 
by  Beechy  in  the  voyage  of  the  Dorothea  and  Trent. 
For  a  time  we  were  awkwardly  placed,  but  we  bored 
through ;  and  the  Rescue,  after  skirting  the  same  ob- 
struction, managed  also  to  get  through  without  damage. 

We  continued  to  run  along  with  our  top-sail  yard 
on  the  cap>  but  the  growing  fog  made  it  impossible  to 
keep  on  our  course  very  long.  After  several  encoun- 
ters with  the  floating  hummocks,  we  succeeded  in  ty- 
ing fast  to  a  heavy  floe,  which  seemed  to  be  connected 
with  the  land,  and  were  thus  moored  within  that  mys- 
terious circuit  known  as  Melville  Bay. 

It  is  during  the  transit  of  this  bay  that  most  of 
the  catastrophes  occur  which  have  made  the  statistics 
of  the  whalers  so  fearful.  It  was  here,  about  twenty 
miles  to  the  south  of  us,  that  in  one  year  more  than 
one  thousand  human  beings  were  cast  shelterless  upon 
the  ice,  their  ships  ground  up  before  their  eyes.  It  is 
rarely  that  a  season  goes  by  in  which  the  passage  is 
attempted  without  disaster. 

The  inshore  side  of  the  indentation  is  lined  by  a 
sweep  of  glacier,  through  which  here  and  there  the 
dark  headlands  of  the  coast  force  themselves  with  se- 
vere contrast.  Outside  of  this,  the  sho/e,  if  we  can 
call  it  such,  is  again  lined  with  a  heavy  ledge  of 
ground  ice,  thicker  and  more  permanent  than  that  in 
motion.  This  extends  out  for  miles,  forming  an  icy 
margin  or  beach,  known  technically  as  the  "  land  ice," 


i 

I 


■r 


*  H 

*  ( 
o 


2.     3E 

:S    o 


130   as 


'J       tj 


111 


^ 


^i»,->-  .-jwasjaE 


J 


i^' 


i*,p 


m 


lUJ^Ul*  t* 

};.; 

'it1««» 

by 

»w 

1  <.. 

»i} 

*    H  more 

.^u  to  r«- 
*  ?n  ttu 
•->  >  ijt*i|(- 
• ,     «.h«r 

'«<    itu:      >    .1      -«  .  .  ,  »i4P6m'rib«tl 

:  luo  voyafy*?  «>i  ill**  r>(im^K«a  ami  "km*.*!. 

A't}  \vnr«  awkwardly  pl'u.'*^i    i»«t  wr'  *«»<ft'«d 

ami  the  lU^sru«>,  niter  skirt  mtr  rhe  mVhu*  ub- 

(vjxnagtui  also  to  ji;*a  t!iroim"h  w ithoul  ihuitaafft. 

'♦iiii*»il  ^>  run  Jiionjjr  ^vitli  our  rop-siiLl  yard 

•.,•!  t,%w  p«pr.«'»nf  <i){»  made  it  iju possible  to 

AA**r  Mjvf'ral  encomi- 
rnA-k»  \*tt  ^nt-art'iied  111  ty- 

^aitr'oted 


•>%**   liti^iti  of 


|!? 


'&■■ 


03BW  < 

the  it'i'  "^ 
rarel/  <t 

m^-  ■' '  '  '. 

4r.      • 


lUw-H^i 


'■mma  !.>ein^.'«  were  ca>.i  ifct«:*£efst\ss  upon 
\^s  jEfrouiid  v'p  bnloYe  their  eye^.     It  is 
;-  i'oes  by  in  wiiicVi  the  passage  is 
,    — :    •■st<T 

'?  Hio  indoiita'iou  is  iitxMi  by  a 

1,'b  whj'^i  h*'i>>   and  there  th^) 

<mst  torc«  tbt-'umolves  with  s(< 

■^'  ^uhy  the  sihore,  il  Ave  can 

.^4  •■  .  '    with  a  heavy  ledj/e   of 

v'-' ^  <i:        .  •.   ,H»nnaiiont  chan  that  iu 

,4^  >Mt'  (.ft?  »niles,  Ibrihing  an  ?r| 

;   if*!  ICQiiiiiftttiy  «a  the  "  iaaiJ  ii«»/* 


i 


r 

T 

r 


S     o 


CD 


C 
-< 


PC 


OS 
en 

O 


Ml 


i 


BERGS. 


103 


or  "  the  fast."  Against  this  margin,  the  great  "  drift" 
through  which  we  had  been  passing  exerts  a  remitting 
action,  receding  sometimes  under  the  influence  of  wind 
and  currents  so  as  to  open  a  tortuous  and  uncertain 
canal  along  its  edge,  at  others  closing  against  it  in  a 
barrier  of  contending  floes  and  bergs. 

Our  initiation  into  the  mysteries  of  this  region  was 
ominous  enough.  It  blew  a  gale.  The  offing  was  a 
scene  of  noisy  contention,  obscured  by  a  dense  fog, 
through  which  rose  the  tops  of  the  icebergs  as  they 
drifted  by  us.  Twice  in  the  night  we  were  called  up 
to  escape  these  bergs  by  warping  out  of  their  path. 
Imagine  d.  mass  as  large  as  the  Parthenon  bearing 
down  upon  you  before  a  storm-wind ! 

The  immediate  site  of  our  anchorage  was  about 
eighteen  miles  from  the  Black  Hills,  which  rose  above 
the  glacier.  It  was  truly  an  iron-bound  coast,  bergs, 
floes,  and  hummock  ridges,  in  all  the  disarray  of  win- 
tery  conflict,  cemented  in  a  basis  of  ice  ten  feet  thick, 
and  lashed  by  an  angry  sea.  It  was  the  first  time  I 
had  witnessed  the  stupendous  results  of  ice  action.  I 
went  out  with  Captain  De  Haven  to  observe  them 
more  closely.  The  hummocks  had  piled  themselves 
at  the  edges  of  the  floes  in  a  set  of  rugged  walls,  some- 
times twenty  feet  high ;  and  here  and  there  were  ice- 
bergs firmly  incorporated  in  the  vast  plain.  Our  at- 
tention was  of  course  directed  more  anxiously  to  those 
which  were  drifting  at  large  upon  the  open  water ;  but 
we  could  not  help  being  impressed  by  the  solid  majes- 
ty of  these  stationary  mountains.  The  height  of  one 
of  them,  measured  by  the  sextant,  was  two  hundred 
and  forty  feet. 

It  was  the  motion  of  the  floating  bergs  that  sur- 
rounded us  at  this  time,  which  flrst  gave  me  the  idea 


I 


n 


B 


!,.j 


III 


'    J 


104 


A    RACE. 


i 


&■■ 


of  a  great  under-current  to  the  northward.  Their  drift 
followed  some  system  of  advance  entirely  independent 
of  the  wind,  and  not  apparently  at  variance  with  the 
received  views  of  a  great  southern  current.  On  the 
night  of  the  30th,  while  the  surface  ice  or  floe  was 
drifting  to  the  southward  with  the  wind,  the  bergs 
were  making  a  northern  progress,  crushing  through 
the  floes  in  the  very  eye  of  the  breeze  at  a  measured 
rate  of  a  mile  and  a  half  an  hour.  The  disproportion 
that  uniformly  subsists  between  the  submerged  and 
upper  masses  of  a  floating  berg  makes  it  a  good  index 
of  the  deep  sea  current,  especially  when  its  movement 
is  against  the  wind.  I  noticed  very  many  ice-mount- 
ains traveling  to  the  north  in  opposition  to  both  wind 
and  surface  ice.  One  of  them  we  recognized  five  days 
afterward,  nearly  a  hundred  miles  on  its  northern 
journey. 

In  the  so-called  night,  "all  hands"  were  turned  to, 
and  the  old  system  of  warping  was  renewed.  The 
unyielding  ice  made  it  a  slow  process,  but  enough 
was  gained  to  give  us  an  entrance  to  some  clear  wa- 
ter about  a  mile  in  apparent  length.  While  we  were 
warping,  one  of  these  current-driven  bergs  kept  us 
constant  company,  and  at  one  time  it  was  a  regular 
race  between  us,  for  the  narrow  passage  we  were 
striving  to  reach  would  have  been  completely  barri- 
caded if  our  icy  opponent  had  got  ahead. 

This  exciting  race,  against  wind  and  drift,  and  with 
the  Rescue  in  tow,  was  at  its  height  when  we  reached 
a  point  where,  by  warping  around  our  opponent,  we 
might  be  able  to  make  sail.  Three  active  men  were 
instantly  dispatched  to  prepare  the  warps.  One  took 
charge  of  the  hawser,  and  another  of  the  iron  crow  or 
chisel  which  is  used  to  cut  the  hole;  the  third,  a 


OUR    PROSPECTS. 


105 


brawny  seaman,  named  Costa,  was  in  the  act  of  lift- 
ing the  anchor  and  driving  it  by  main  force  into  the 
solid  ice,  when,  with  a  roar  like  near  thunder,  a  crack 
ran  across  the  berg,  and  almost  instantly  a  segment 
about  twice  the  size  of  our  ship  was  severed  from  the 
rest.  One  man  remained  oscillating  on  the  principal 
mass,  a  second  escaped  by  jumping  to  the  back  ropes 
and  chain  shrouds  of  the  bowsprit ;  but  poor  Costa ! 
anchor  and  all,  disappeared  in  the  chasm !  By  a  mer> 
ciful  Godsend,  the  sunken  fragment  had  broken  oflf 
so  cleanly  that,  when  it  rose,  it  scraped  against  the 
fractured  surface,  and  brought  up  its  living  freight 
along  with  it.  Scared  half  to  death,  he  was  caught 
by  the  captain  as  he  passed  the  jib-boom,  and  brought 
safe  on  board.  This  incident,  coming  thus  early  in 
our  cruise,  was  a  useful  warning. 

In  spite  of  all  our  eflforts,  we  had  effected  little  since 
anchoring  to  this  ice ;  but  our  position,  as  determined 
by  observation  and  chronometer,  was  latitude  75°  02' 
27",  longitude  59°  50'  42",  showing  an  advance  of  40 
miles  to  the  northward  since  leaving  the  pack  on  the 
29th. 

"August  1.  The  last  month  of  summer  was  upon  us. 
July,  the  mid-summer  of  highest  mean  temperature 
and  greatest  ice  dissolution,  had  done  little  for  us. 
Our  prospects  were  far  from  cheery.  The  season  of 
complete  consolidation,  when  winter  closes  the  navi- 
gation of  these  seas,  could  not  be  postponed  beyond 
fifty  days  longer,  and  we  had  yet  to  double  the  ice 
of  Melville.  Our  mean  daily  temperature  for  the  past 
week  had  been  37°  1',  and  ice  had  formed  during  the 
hours  of  low  sun  three  quarters  of  an  inch  thick. 
What  an  idea  it  gives  one  of  the  Arctic  winter,  to 
think  that  this  short  summer  is  nature's  only  compen- 


'HI 


lOG 


COLD    SUNSHINE. 


i'M 


satioii  lor  tho  oi|[?lit  months  of  <ronstaiit  freezing  that 
fill  up  the  year.  Our  thernionieter!!!  to-day  fell  to  28°; 
our  mean  for  tho  entire  twenty-four  hours  was  but  32" 
y,  not  (juite  a  de«,'ree  above  tiie  I'reezinjr  point. 

^^Amrifst  2.  'Wivrpinjr!'  Tired  of  the  very  word! 
About  2  P.M.  a  hnid,  h^ss  obstrueted  than  its  I'ellows, 
enabhul  us  to  crowd  on  tlio  canvas,  and  sail  with  gen- 
tle airs  ior  about  two  miles  to  the  eastward,  and  then, 
losing  what  little  wind  we  had,  we  tied  up  again  to 
our  friend  tho  land  ice ;  the  little  Rescue,  as  usual,  a 
lew  yards  astern. 

"We  have  learned  to  love  the  sunshine,  though  we 
have  lost  the  night  that  gives  it  value  to  others,  It 
conies  back  to  us  this  evening,  after  the  gale,  with  a 
cirtniit  of  sparkling  and  imaginative  beauty,  like  the 
spangled  petticoat  of  a  ballet-dancer  in  full  twirl  to  a 
boy  on  his  first  visit  to  the  opera.  I  borrow  the  com- 
parison from  one  of  my  mess-mates ;  but,  in  truth,  all 
this  about  sunshine  and  warmth  is  only  compara- 
tive at  the  best,  for,  though  writing  on  deck,  'out  of 
doors,'  as  they  say  at  home,  the  thermometers  give  us 
but  13^" 


UE.MAIN.s   OK   A    DEBQ. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


We  were  now  opposite  the  line  of  coast  between 
Allison's  and  Duneira  Bays,  immediately  north  of  75°. 
Here,  with  the  new  sunshine,  the  Greenland  shore 
broke  upon  us.  It  was  covered  with  extended  gla- 
ciers, filling  up  the  intervals  between  protruding  mass- 
es of  gneiss  and  other  metamorphic  rocks.  The  con- 
figuration of  their  surface,  as  seen  from  a  distance  of 
eighteen  miles,  had  an  apparent  relation  to  that  of  the 
basis  of  country  on  which  they  were  erected. 

My  first  feeling  was  one  of  disappointment,  for  I  had 
expected  a  more  palpable  resemblance  to  the  glaciers 
of  the  Alps.  But  this  feeling  soon  gave  place  to 
amazement.  It  is  true  that  they  were  neither  sus- 
pended upon  the  flanks  of  lofty  mountains  nor  inclosed 
in  valley  hills;  but  these  regions  of  eternal  snow  need- 
ed no  mountain  altitudes  to  furnish  forth  the  incre- 


W: 


i^ri 


1 11 


m 


108 


HEIGHT    OF    BERGS. 


ments  of  ice  growth.  Before  us  was  an  extended  aiea 
of  ice,  rising  by  a  regular  talus  till  it  cut  against  the  sky, 
at  the  height  of  perhaps  nine  hundred  feet.  Its  area, 
visible  to  the  eye,  measured  rudely  from  two  project- 
ing headlands,  was  about  forty  miles  by  ten  in  one 
unbroken  sweep ;  and  its  edges,  where  it  entered  the 
sea,  were  abrupt  precipices,  resembling  the  terrace- 
work  of  trap-rocks. 

The  icebergs  were  very  numerous :  I  counted  two 
hundred  and  eight  within  the  horizon ;  and  the  in- 
shore or  glacier  face  was  quite  choked  with  grounded 
masses,  the  more  recent  product  of  this  great  manufac- 
tory. Mr.  Griffin,  who  visited  one  of  those  impacted 
in  the  floe,  estimated  its  height  by  the  fall  of  a  bullet 
and  a  seconds'  watch  at  three  hundred  and  eighty  feet. 
This  was,  of  course,  only  an  approximation ;  but  the 
characteristic  accuracy  of  the  gentleman  whose  esti- 
mate it  was,  makes  it  certain  that  the  altitude  of  this 
berg  exceeded  three  hundred  feet,  a  height  which  our 
subsequent  observations  proved  to  be  of  rare  occurrence. 

Baffin's  Bay  is  not  only  the  most  abundant  source 
of  icebergs  known,  but  their  magnitude  here  is  great- 
er, probably,  than  any  where  else.  The  greatest  alti- 
tude of  antarctic  ice  mountains  reported  by  Forster  was 
"  100  feet  and  upward."  Graah's  highest,  on  the  east 
coast  of  Greenland,  did  not  exceed  120  feet;  Scores- 
by's,  in  the  Spitzbergen  seas,  200  feet ;  and  Beechey's, 
in  Magdalena  Bay,  not  exceeding  the  same  height ; 
while  Sir  John  Ross  measured  one  in  this  very  bay 
of  325  feet  in  height  by  1200  long.  Our  own  greatest 
sextant  measurement,  with  a  floe  serving  for  a  base 
line,  gave  us  260  feet;  but  we  met  others  much  higher. 
One  of  these  bergs  presented  a  long  inclined  talus, 
which  was  evidently  part  of  an  original  slope,  unaltered 


FOGS. 


109 


by  after  changes  in  equilibrium.  I  here  noticed  some 
interesting  changes  in  the  granular  condition  of  its 
surface  snows,  establishing  the  same  gradual  increase 
of  diameter  which  has  been  observed  in  the  grains  of 
the  Alpine  Neve. 

August  3.  On  the  3d,  while  we  were  engaged  in  the 
eternal  warping,  a  large  Polar  bear  walked  leisurely 
toward  us.  The  floes  were  so  separated  that  he  had 
to  take  to  the  water,  when  a  party  from  the  Rescue 
pursued  him  in  boats.  Several  times  he  attempted  to 
gain  the  ice ;  but  it  crumbled  under  him,  and  he  was 
forced  to  continue  his  swim.  The  boat  gained  on  him 
rapidly ;  and  at  last,  just  as  he  had  succeeded  in  ef- 
fecting a  foothold,  gave  him  a  ball  at  sixty  yards. 
But,  although  wounded,  he  gained  the  ice,  and,  con- 
tinuing his  march,  was  soon  lost  among  the  icebergs. 

Our  progress  to-day  was  by  alternate  warping  and 
sailing ;  but  in  this  latter  resort  we  met  a  new  imped- 
iment, the  "  young,"  or,  as  it  is  called  by  the  whalers, 
the  "  bay  ice."  This  formed  a  brittle  pellicle  nearly 
an  inch  thick,  which,  besides  retarding  our  way,  cut 
into  our  sides  like  glass.  We  combated  it  till  2  P. 
M.,  but  then  a  thick  fog  obliged  us  to  tie  up  to  the 
floe. 

In  an  atmosphere  close  upon  the  point  of  saturation, 
the  fog  vesicle  is  precipitated  by  a  very  slight  differ- 
ence in  the  temperatures  of  the  atmospheric  strata.  I 
had  observed  these  fogs  before,  when  the  surface  wa- 
ter was  a  few  degrees  warmer  than  the  atmosphere, 
which  was  generally  near  the  freezing  point.  Now, 
however,  the  converse  was  the  case ;  the  temperature 
of  the  air  was  about  39°,  and  the  water  as  low  as  30°. 
The  belt  of  condensation  was  singularly  v/ell  defined. 
Although  we  could  not  distinguish  objects  thirty  paces 


U  I 


1;:^ 


1,: 


"A'  I 


u 


4 
I  I 


110 


DECEPTIONS    OF    FOG. 


off  on  the  level  of  the  decks,  every  thing  was  clearly 
discernible  at  an  elevation  of  forty  feet.  I  saw  dis- 
tinctly the  surrounding  bergs  rising  above  a  sea  of 
mist. 

One  phenomenon,  however,  struck  me  as  novel :  at 
least  I  have  never  seen  it  described.  It  was  this  : 
Though  the  bergs  were  thus  obscured  at  their  bases 
by  a  dense  plain  of  vapor,  the  Rescue,  at  an  equal  dis- 
tance, was  visible  throughout  her  entire  extent,  encir- 
cled as  by  an  oriole  in  a  clear  atmosphere.  Repeated 
observations  have  suggested  to  me  this  explanation  of 
this  phenomenon. 

These  fogs,  due  to  local  refrigeration,  are  merely  ex- 
ceptional breaks-in  upon  our  pervading  sunshine.  They 
are  generally  temporary,  and  the  stratum  of  precipita- 
tion is  so  narrow  that  the  sun  is  hardly  intercepted. 
Evaporation  continues  as  before ;  the  decks  are  dry 
and  heated ;  and  the  radiating  influences  of  the  vessel 
while  stationary  invest  it  with  a  sort  of  dome  or  halo 
of  transparency.  I  have  noticed  this  effect  when  look- 
ing at  one  of  our  brigs  from  on  board  the  other,  and 
have  found  that,  if  the  sun  was  obscured  for  any  length 
of  time,  the  hull  disappeared,  and  the  upper  rigging 
only  protruded  from  a  sea  of  mist.  My  sketch  at  the 
head  of  this  chapter  will  show  some  of  the  curious 
phases  of  this  phenomenon. 

The  effects  of  fogs  upon  our  estimation  of  dimension 
and  distance  are  well  known :  men  are  magnified  to 
giants,  and  brigs  "loom  up,"  as  the  sailors  term  it, 
into  ships  of  the  line.  They  are  especially  interesting 
among  the  icebergs  of  this  region.  Two  bergs  were 
measured  trigonometrically  on  the  4th,  with  a  careful- 
ly ascertained  base-line  of  four  hundred  yards.  One 
of  these,  which  I  had  estimated  by  eye  as  nearly  three 


DECEPTIVE    DISTANCES. 


Ill 


hundred  feet  high,  gave  but  eighty-four.  A  second, 
measured  by  Captain  Griffin,  gave  but  forty :  I  had 
confidently  assumed  it  to  be  over  two  hundred  feet  in 
height.  In  fact,  our  very  hummocks  were  enlarged  to 
icebergs,  and  every  berg  we  looked  at  flared  up  into  a 
colossal  mountain.  Scoresby,  the  most  practical  and 
observant  of  all  who  have  written  upon  these  seas,  at- 
tributes this  eftect  to  an  increase  in  the  apparent  dis- 
tance. It  seems  to  me  that  this  false  estimate  of  dis- 
tance itself  falls  under  an  interesting  class  of  decep- 
tions almost  convertible  with  the  other,  and,  like  it, 
dependent  on  the  educated  habitudes  of  the  eye.  Our 
ideas  of  distance  determine  our  appreciation  of  magni- 
tude, and  a  mistake  of  the  one  makes  an  error  of  the 
other.  In  the  words  of  Professor  Henry,  who  has  in- 
geniously applied  this  view  to  our  apprehension  of 
relative  motion, "  The  mind  draws  wrong  conclusions 
from  the  evidence  of  the  senses." 

We  remained  with  our  anchors  in  the  field  ice  for 
several  days.  The  weather  was  clear  and  still,  and 
gave  us  a  favorable  opportunity  for  observing  the  for- 
mation of  the  young  ice  on  a  large  scale.  When  the 
thermometer  is  ranging  between  33°  and  28°,  irregular 
polyhedral  disks  are  seen  forming  over  the  whole  open 
surface  of  the  sea  with  a  rapidity  unknown  under  more 
southern  skies,  and  covering  it  with  a  mosaic  of  pel- 
licles about  the  size  of  a  common  saucer.  From  these, 
acicular  rays  shoot  out  in  every  direction,  and  in  a 
very  little  while  interlock  themselves  in  a  net-work 
of  crystals.  The  ice  film  is  now  complete.  In  a  few 
minutes  more  it  has  thickened  to  sheet  ice.  and  be- 
comes dangerous  to  navigators.  One  of  our  boats, 
which  had  been  employed  in  passing  from  the  brig  to 
the  field,  was  nearly  cut  through  in  a  few  hours.    The 


Ml': 

■  f^ ' 
■■■1/ 


I- 


I  i 


r!    I 


ill 

1  ; 

'M 

1 

.  ^^Hh 

1 

lij^B 

1 ' 

iiJH 

1' 

112 


BERGS. 


Advance  herself,  though  plated  with  iron  as  perhaps 
no  other  vessel  has  heen,  showed  unequivocal  marks 
of  damage  upon  her  sheathing.  She  was  heeled  over, 
and  fortified  with  three  additional  strips  of  boiler  iron, 
extending  hack  from  her  cut- water  to  her  beam. 

Our  position  was  immediately  opposite  Duneira 
Bay,  or,  more  exactly  speaking,  within  it,  at  the  dis- 
tance of  perhaps  twelve  miles  from  the  shore.  The 
scenery  was  peculiar,  wanting  the  sameness  which 
generally  characterizes  an  Arctic  landscape,  and  the 
atmosphere  so  bright  that  we  could  see  every  wrinkle 
on  the  face  of  the  hills.  An  immense  glacier  formed 
a  parapet  wall  of  white  masonry  at  their  feet.  On  the 
other  side  of  us  was  what  had  been  the  sea,  a  ragged 
surface  of  ice,  unbroken  except  by  the  black  rivers 
which  wound  themselves  among  its  ridges,  and  here 
and  there  by  the  pinnacle  of  a  projecting  iceberg.  Be- 
yond came  the  varying  horizon  of  icebergs ;  and  still 
further  on,  shaded  towers  and  sunlit  pyramids  of  ice 
penciled  their  fantastic  outlines  against  the  sky.  The 
sun,  at  its  midnight  elevation  of  three  degrees,  bathed 
the  whole  hemisphere  in  the  purple  light  of  our  Amer- 
ican sunset. 

The  bergs  were  an  interesting  subject  of  study.  I 
counted  one  morning  no  less  than  two  hundred  and 
ten  of  them  from  our  decks,  forming  a  beaded  line  from 
the  N.N.W.  to  the  S.S.E.  It  was,  in  fact,  an  investing 
chain  of  ice  mountains,  for  the  oflfsets  from  the  glaciers 
completed  an  apparent  circle. 

As  we  warped  slowly  along,  I  had  an  opportunity 
of  partially  measuring  some  of  them.  One,  p.  magnif- 
icent specimen  of  ice  architecture,  was  195  f^rt  high; 
another  was,  on  its  longest  face,  310  fathoms,  or  1860 
feet :  its  height  was  140  feet ;  and,  reducing  its  fnass 


led 
ler- 


N 


\ 


v^. 


!■ 


l'!..!l 


tnd 


fng 
Lers 


|ity 
lif- 


^60 

iss 


!<.<>' 


..■■:0-yy 


Iff 


I  1 


*l! 


i:l        I 


I         i 


h 


I!    I 


\    ! 


.'!^- 


lii 


*ii^ihir 


i^»  (MhtiT  veri.sol  Ir.is  U-. 


'  *''tJ»  ir  u    fis  perhaps 

■ttfxuil  marks 

•v-<»{od  over, 


tfxr,.'  tJin^r  f*u«k  I'roiii  hf«  '(^wt-w^st**^  ^< 

bav,  :r.  more  exjicr.U  ^|H**ik»ii|E,  ^itbta  ;i  ni  %t*-  XI'*- 
tatic<"'  i*f  perhaps  twelvv  ixnU-^  ihrni  the  »»»» rv  ;W 
scejifTV  M'as  peculiar,  winiMnj.'  tho  S!H^eru«s^  suH^Kh 
g'cuerally  cliariicierizes  an  Arctic  lainiscapf.  nn*i  '^?Mt 
atUK.ispliere  so  bright  1fhj:\t  vso  could  sec  nvcry  wrinklrt 
nn  rhe  i':tc«  of  the  hills.  An  iiumojisr  irlacior  foriiifr'd 
i  pi4.rap€'t  wall  ol'  \>  hitc  iiiasioiiry  ul  their  t't- I't.  On  the 
'iiil«5T  «i^^'»  of'  us  wits  what  hi'd  beca  the  .sea,  a  rairj^od 
«i2/fft«**»  '4  n'«,  unbroken  cx««»t  by  the  bia'-k  rivers 
'  .j:'v>^i >■-:'.   r^-yTi^i  fh*'j»i^'i"('y-  VH'iiOii^  jta  nu^^**i,  tiiui  here 

Th«  im.^^  w<'re  ail  iatercsting-  subject  of  stiKly.  I 
countefi  V  ''■«  sa^maug  no  less  tliari  two  hviudreil  aiid 
N*(  J^  >X  •     «,,.'  decks,  i'urniiKjft"  alHiaw;lwi  Unr  t'coiu 

t^e  ^i  N,  ^  >  S  K.     It  wa#,  lb  i*e*^t,  #ut  inventing 

eJ***^  till  im  ***.'<; >i*^j«#.  tor  the  oil'^ets  tiojn  the  liflaciers 
r:'ijsi>l^^d  »^,  Hi!  circle. 

^i-  m^  wMpiSr  •.  ^  viv  ftlonff,  T  had  nu  opj)ortuni{Y 
5>i  ^  .^^v^^sV  r*i*nfe4af«M4?  «i'jss*»  ol'thcni.  One.  a  iiiaj?nil- 
K#ii.-*'  '"'.mr.!  *tt  tc<'  ftM-hil«cinre,  was  :i9o  I'eet  h.y;h; 

an**^*;-  s       v;^  mv  's^  h'^^^l  face,  IHO  Ikthoiue,  i.n  1*^60 
itm    it'v-  Jf.frv^f|i  v.;»r  I  -.•.i  fect ;  and,  roiliiciD!?  iU  iuass 


i:'i 


ii< 


W;> 


FORMATION    OF    BERGS. 


113 


to  a  parallelopipedon,  its  remaining  side  could  not 
have  been  less  than  1000  feet. 

The  symmetrical  character  of  this  great  body  of  ice 
allowed  me  to  estimate  its  magnitude  and  weight. 
Applying  the  recognized  proportion  of  8.2  below  wa- 
ter for  1  above,  and  assuming,  as  Scoresby's  experi- 
ments seem  to  justify,  that  thirty-five  cubic  feet  of 
water  in  the  Greenland  seas  have  a  weight  of  one  ton, 
we  have  more  than  2135  millions  of  cubic  feet  as  the 
solid  contents  of  the  berg,  and  61  millions  of  tons  for 
its  weight.  It  was  therefore  at  least  one  third  larger 
than  the  one  which  Scoresby  measured  on  the  eastern 
coast  (Scoresby's  Jour.,  p.  233).  But  great  as  it  was, 
we  saw  others  afterward  still  more  stupendous,  one 
of  which  I  measured  topographically. 

Many  of  the  bergs  were  covered  with  detritus. 
From  one  which  had  thawed  down  to  the  water's 
edge,  I  obtained  some  specimens  of  diiferent  rocks, 
which  were  found  adhering  to  its  upper  face.  They 
all  belonged  to  the  primary  series — quartz,  gneiss,  sy- 
enite, augitic  green-stone  and  clay  slate.  Some  of 
them  were  marked  with  well-defined  striae,  without 
angular  crossings,  smooth,  and  occasionally  polished 
even  highly ;  others  were  cut  in  facets  of  more  or  less 
regularity.  They  varied  in  size  from  large  blocks  to 
mere  pebbles,  conglomerated  in  the  ice  with  finely- 
powdered  gneissoid  material.  The  berg  had  evident- 
ly changed  its  equilibrium ;  and  it  seemed  as  if  these 
rocks  had  been  cemented  in  its  former  base,  and  had 
there  been  subjected  to  attrition  during  its  rotary  os- 
dilations  against  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

Others  of  them  bore  unmistakable  marks  of  the  mo- 
raines through  which  they  had  passed.  The  depos- 
ited material  had  a  linear  arrangement,  as  if  dropped 

H 


ill 

w 


'I 

'  'I 

I 

m 


m 

*4 


114 


FORMS    or    BKRGS. 


ill  series  during  the  progress  of  the  original  glacier. 
In  one  instance  an  escarped  face  of  berg  was  impressed 
in  intaglio  with  the  mould  of  the  cliff  from  which  it 
had  been  severed,  and  the  upper  marginal  line  was 
studded  with  angular  and  attrited  fragments,  evident- 
ly deposited  during  the  movement  of  the  glacier.  This 
interesting  fact,  which  I  have  not  found  noticed  in  any 
of  the  books,  admitted  of  no  deception.  We  could  not 
stop  to  collect  specimens,  but  I  had  time  to  make  an 
accurate  sketch  of  the  section,  and  was  near  enough 
to  recognize  the  schistose  character  of  the  adhering 
detritus. 

The  glacier,  although  too  distant  for  nice  observa- 
tion, showed  how  very  readily  such  a  debacle  might 
carry  with  it  not  only  the  impression  of  its  valley  side, 
but  rudimentary  moraine  traces,  deposited  from  the 
ridges  adjacent  and  above.  With  a  Fraunhofer  glass, 
I  could  see  that  the  dark  knob-like  protrusions,  which 
rose  here  and  there  above  the  surface  of  the  glacier, 
were  the  presenting  faces  of  hills  that  went  back  in 
winding  ridges,  on  both  sides  of  which  a  discolored 
line  indicated  the  accumulation  of  detritus. 
.  The  forms  of  these  bergs  were  constantly  varying 
under  the  action  of  the  waves  and  the  consequent 
changes  in  their  equilibrium.  Many  of  them  were  in- 
teresting, some  fantastic,  and  some  occasionally  beau- 
tiful for  their  symmetry ;  but  I  do  not  think  they  im- 
pressed  us  as  vividly  as  they  seem  to  have  done  other 
voyagers  with  their  resemblance  to  more  familiar  ob- 
jects. Except  when  they  came  to  us  embellished  by 
refraction,  we  had  few  of  these  imaginative  pictures. 
Yet  there  was  about  the  forms,  and  the  coloring  also, 
of  the  berg  ice,  a  harmonious  variety  and  grace,  that 
needed  no  prototype  to  commend  them. 


9 

• 

h 

iL    ^ 

__  .  M.-^im^..'M'^  rESEnr^  ^  .i-icr 

? 

r. 
5(1 

1 

•f: 

*^.    ,:.■.. 


I ' 


i! 


1 

i^^^H   1 

i^^Hfl 

, 

ifli 

;>. 

Hi 

^^H 

^^H 

^  ...' 

^^^K 

!■'■' 

^B' 

'■i' 

B 

ll 

■ 

*m 


/I* 


B 


M'-\ 


iJ'iS 


I 


P  O  ^  ,v.  .■ 


a   rjKJilirlu)  With   *;,. 

[y  tin*  ■  ><.  -'^i  during  tiw?  i*«»>^#^^:f^ 

of  ritM  i'iCM/k.s,  a^hnitted  uf  no  «btir^optii«ai,  ^  *>^^^*  swH 
i4t(>p  to  collect  speciinens,  liut  (  luui  fclm"  to  lAi^k**  m» 
ac<'iimte  skfitcli  oi' the  section,  and  was  near  enou*.^li 

to  rfMV'iiUvise  tlh-^  8o!«i>;tv)se  character  of  f'\e  adiiorin^ 
d.C'i.J'*i  JiiciS.. 

Thr  ^m'^-1^  '»*^v  M/"  .  .<•  :^•,>•sU^i^t  f<n  nice  observa- 


-^  <#*^tir'*ttAJ  glacier. 

•  '♦  w\v*  anpressed 

•rs^  vrhioh  it 

/■  <4m  hi»«  was 

1ht» 


■"i^*-  i-^l^-  ^;i^  '?■'■■  ■ '  ■  •      -♦'■-* 


4«r^  •.    v  ■•  h'M^le  mitfht 


'iMi**  '>--i?<?^  'iV'>lB  ■  ih** 


lirf'    ^;'V- 


t*  >^      t  *«,.'.  V 

•V '    ''';,>■.-■■%■•■>• 

-fv^'v,- 

:i.>'^>    lfe^..      ■;-   ■• 

:  l-r./-     ■ 

v-;;^- 

¥f??iu^~r!-^   jk^^'- 


liii'-  iu<Vicat«d  the  it^^f  'auulatiirfi  ' .  .■  rvitus. 

The  i'vjiTir^  of  thej?o  bergs  wore  constantly  varyuii? 
dnder  ^h*'  ficli')n  of  the  waves  and  tiie  conseqiioiit 
'.diaM|»«    .     sH«^>.Y  e<^nilibri.uin.    Many  oi'  them  were  m- 

':'^p*,-3*ii^i  ■  M.I ?f»..nic,  and  some  uc-tsaiooiAl^-   Ueaii- 

'.,t'^<;   ilk  .  .a.;i»'lry  ;  but  1  do  »f4  tinuk  they  ini- 

.,»isii  m  *■  f'^x^-    u;«  they  set^ii  Us  have  don«?  other 
-"^itv  wiU?  <   f-'   4>«t:;/)jl)la(iC'j  to  more  familiar  oh- 
,>«,,      r  >;rt*.|>i  %»;«"  i^*"*  oame  to  us  eniheliished  by 
.  ^*«.  *r  Hm^  n.w  i?*  these  inia'.'-inative  picture?!. 

*,  .4^  *i,iHKit.  ilki-  tsimBi?';,  and  the  coloriuj^"  nUo, 

01      -  j»t^r;'  r  vi,  a  hi^rmouioiiit  Ttti'iety  and  ^msu  '.hat 
i)f*e<  !o  eomniend  th^t'i! 


HI 

'  m^ 

wM 

MM 

ISI 

i 

'0   ''in' 

i 

I  jII 

'  ii' 


5    ¥ 


DECEPTIVE    DISTANCES. 


115 


The  general  shapes  were  those  of  the  symmetrical 
solids,  cubes,  rhombs,  and  wedges,  with  surfaces  pre- 
senting all  the  varieties  of  terrene  configuration ;  but 
these  were  of  the  recently  disrupted  ice.  In  the  oldei 
structures,  where  the  degrading  actions  of  the  sea  and 
air  were  aided  by  constantly  recurring  fractures,  and 
with  these  constantly  shifting  centres  of  flotation,  the 
changes  had  a  more  picturesque  character ;  archways, 
natural  bridges,  terraces,  and  spiral  ledges,  from  which 
the  long  icicles  hung  in  grotesque  and  sparkling  va- 
riety. 

Sometimes,  while  I  was  studying  the  escarped  faces 
of  these  bergs,  we  would  enter  little  caves  with  shelv- 
ing bottoms  of  pure  blue,  and,  strange  to  say,  teeming 
with  crustacean  life.  I  see  by  my  journal  that  on  one 
occasion,  while  trying,  in  company  with  my  friend, 
Mr.  Murdaugh,  to  net  some  of  these  misplaced  ento- 
mostraca,  I  brought  up  a  couple  of  forms  of  beroe,  both 
with  ciliate  margins,  apparently  quite  at  home  upon 
the  pure  surface  of  this  icy  basin. 

In  the  course  of  our  observations  upon  the  differ- 
ent forms  of  ice  that  surrounded  us,  we  realized  some 
additional  proofs  of  the  deceptive  character  of  Arctic 
distances.  That  aerial  perspective,  which  is  with  us 
so  palpable  an  element  in  the  composition  of  a  land- 
scape,  was  scarcely  to  be  noticed,  except  as  tinting  the 
background  with  a  deeper  transparency  of  blue.  In 
the  estimate  of  both  altitude  and  horizontal  distance, 
the  iceberg  was  a  complete  puzzle.  I  have  often 
started  for  a  berg  fast  in  the  land  floe,  seemingly 
within  musket-shot,  and,  after  walking  for  nearly  an 
hour,  found  its  apparent  position  unchanged. 

On  one  occasion,  when  engaged  with  our  command- 
er in  an  attempt  to  inspect  a  low  mass  of  ice  covered 


I 


i 


II 


I 


ti'  PI 


I  w 


IHH<! 


I  I 


i  'I 


116 


bihds. 


with  detritus,  which  we  expected  to  reach  in  a  few 
minutes,  a  hard  hour's  pull  left  us  the  meagre  satis- 
faction of  finding  the  object  perched  on  the  summit 
of  a  lofty  berg,  whose  base  was  even  then  below  the 
horizon.  That  isolated  projection  upon  an  expanded 
level,  and  destitution  of  points  of  comparison,  which 
make  the  pyramids  so  deceptive  to  the  Egyptian  trav- 
eler as  he  approaches  them  over  the  desert,  have  an 
equally  marked  application  to  the  icebergs  of  the  Polar 
Seas. 

We  had  been  struck,  as  I  have  mentioned  already, 
by  the  absence  of  birds  since  our  approach  to  the  mid- 
dle ice.  Now,  however,  our  stay  had  been  so  pro- 
longed, that  the  absentees  began  to  meet  us  on  their 
return.  Among  the  first  and  most  welcome  was  the 
little  Auk,  the  Rotge  of  the  whalers,  coming  down  from 
its  breeding-places  in  the  still  further  north. 

This  bird,  the  JJria  alle  of  Temminck,  occupies,  ac- 
cording to  the  ornithologists,  an  intermediate  position 
between  the  Auk  and  the  Guillemot.  It  is  of  the  size 
of  a  partridge,  fat,  and  delicately  flavored ;  and  it  came 
to  us  in  such  immense  flocks  as  to  form  a  highly  im- 
portant addition  to  our  diet  list. 

Indeed,  no  other  bird  migrates  in  such  numbers,  oi 
contributes  so  largely  to  the  pleasures  of  the  Arctic 
table.  Sir  James  Ross,  in  the  Investigator,  killed 
four  thousand ;  and  Mr.  Martin,  of  the  whale-ship  En- 
terprise, who  received  the  parting  farewell  of  Sir  John 
Franklin  in  this  region,  assures  us  that  this  far-sighted 
commander  had  killed  and  salted  down  so  many  of 
these  birds  as  to  augment  his  resources  by  nearly  a 
two  years'  supply  of  food.  For  ourselves,  without  any 
special  organization  for  the  pursuit,  we  shot  enough 
of  them,  from  the  time  of  their  arrival  till  we  entered 


BIRDS. 


117 


Lancaster  Sound,  to  furnish  the  tahles  of  all  our  mess- 
es abundantly. 

They  were  first  seen  on  the  6th,  flying  in  detached 
parties  to  the  southeast,  and  descending  during  the 
hours  of  low  sun  to  the  floes.  As  they  became  more 
numerous,  they  would  cover  the  sea  in  detached  patch- 
es, so  crowding  the  margins  of  the  floes  and  the  de- 
tached pieces  of  ice  as  to  streak  the  surrounding  area 
with  black  figures.  On  such  occasions,  while  feed- 
ing on  the  ciliogrades  and  entomostraca,  they  can  be 
approached  near  enough  to  be  knocked  down  with 
poles  and  boat-hooks.  The  whalers  even  shoot  them 
with  dried  peas.  The  slaughter  of  these  poor  birds 
fell  in  large  share  to  me;  it  was  not  uncommon  to 
kill  more  than  a  hundred  in  a  couple  of  hours. 


./\ 


i 


¥ 


i 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


m 


August  7.  This  morning  our  friends  of  the  Rescue 
killed  a  bear.  His  curiosity  cost  him  his  life.  When 
first  seen,  he  was  swimming  toward  the  brig,  breaking 
the  newly.formed  ice  with  his  fore  paws.  Finding 
his  progress  by  this  method  unsatisfactory,  he  made  a 
succession  of  dives,  coming  up  each  time  nearer  his 
assailants,  who  were  advancing  to  meet  him  in  a  boat. 
He  had  a  strange  look  as  he  :  "'se  after  one  of  these 
submersions,  breaking  the  ice  with  his  upward  mo- 
mentum, panting,  and  shaking  his  head  like  a  dog  to 
free  it  from  the  water.  Captain  Griffin,  who  was  one 
of  our  best  shots,  lodged  a  ball  under  his  left  shoulder 
without  effect.  Several  other  bullets  struck  him  be- 
fore he  turned  to  get  away ;  and  even  when  one  of 
them  had  severed  the  lumbar  vertebrae,  the  hardy  an- 
imal regained  the  floe,  dragging  after  him  his  para- 
lyzed extremity.  In  this  condition  he  was  brought  to 
bay,  and  received  the  coup-de-grace  from  a  bayonet. 

This  bear  had  a  coating  of  fat  round  the  back 
and  abdomen,  which  measured  nearly  three  inches. 
When  the  animal  is  in  good  condition,  this  investing 


PEAR    HUNT. 


119 


envelope  of  blubber  pervades  the  entire  cellular  tissue, 
communicating  to  the  flesh  a  strong  and  fishy  taste. 
He  is  therefore,  contrary  to  our  butchers'  rules  at 
home,  most  palatable  when  lean.  In  the  present  case, 
we  ate  liberally  of  his  steaks,  although  they  savored 
somewhat  of  lamp  oil. 

The  liver  of  the  Polar  bear  is  avoided  by  the  Es- 
quimaux. The  whalers  say  that  it  produces  a  cuta- 
neous eruption ;  and  Scoresby,  who  observes  upon  this 
as  a  "curious  fact,"  speaks  also  of  sailors  having  died 
from  its  poisonous  effects.  Knowing  that  the  seal, 
upon  which  the  bear  chiefly  feeds,  is  palatable  and 
nutritious  throughout,  I  determined  to  test  the  some- 
what anomalous  fact  of  a  poisonous  viscus  in  a  quad- 
ruped, and  therefore  ate  of  it  freely.  I  found  no  ill 
effect  from  it.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  accepted  after- 
ward as  a  frequent  dish  upon  our  breakfast  table ;  and 
during  the  trials  of  our  long  winter,  it  was  never  re- 
jected by  the  crew.  This  idea,  which  has  crept  very 
generally  into  our  systematic  books,  Fabricius,  Rich- 
ardson, and  Parry  among  the  rest,  is  probably  based 
on  some  accidental  cases  of  a  diseased  organ:  it  is  as 
much  at  variance  with  sound  analogies  as  with  the 
experience  of  our  party. 

Three  days  after  this  we  had  another  hunt.  Three 
bears  were  seen  stalking  over  the  floes  to  our  left,  and 
almost  at  the  same  moment  three  more  were  report- 
ed on  the  land  ice.  While  we  were  hesitating  which 
party  to  attack,  those  on  the  land  side  took  to  the 
water  ahead  of  us,  and,  with  a  sort  of  infatuation, 
swam  toward  the  brig.  The  lead  in  which  we  were 
was  not  wider  than  the  Schuylkill  at  Gray's  Ferry, 
some  three  hundred  yards  perhaps,  and  a  couple  of 
minutes  therefore  brought  our  boat  within  shot. 


'I 


1" 


120 


WARM    FOG. 


The  animals  showed  no  signs  of  fear ;  instead  of 
retreating,  they  bore  directly  down  upon  us.  Imagine 
three  huge  beasts,  of  the  largest  size  seen  in  our  men- 
ageries, in  white  contrast  with  the  dark  water ;  their 
mouths  open,  as  is  their  custom  in  swimming ;  and  so 
close,  that  you  could  see  their  teeth  shining  over  their 
dew-laps. 

I  do  not  think  that  we  distinguished  ourselves. 
The  captain's  gun  missed  fire ;  and  I  reserved  mine 
for  an  occasion  that  never  came.  Mr.  Lovell  deposit- 
ed his  bullet  in  the  base  of  the  brain,  killing  his  ani- 
mal at  first  shot;  but,  while  we  were  securing  him, 
the  rest  turned  tail,  gained  the  floe,  and  escaped. 

August  9.  The  day,  although  warm  and  delight 
ful,  with  a  temperature  at  noon  of  38°,  became  to 
ward  its  close  suddenly  obscured  by  fog.     Our  sensa 
tions  of  cold  attendant  upon  this  change  were  sin 
gularly  disproportioned  to  the  thermometrical  indica 
tions.     At  8  P.M.,  the  temperature  of  the  surface  wa 
ter,  which  had  previously  been  31°,  suddenly  rose  to 
36° ;  the  air  falling  to  29°.     This,  while  it  had  a  direct 
connection  with  the  fog,  was  interesting,  as  it  marked 
the  presence  of  a  belt  of  warm  water,  surrounded  by 
the  same  ice  influences  which  depressed  it  before.     I 
have  had  repeated  occasion,  while  passing  through  this 
bay,  to  remark  these  sudden  elevations  of  tempera- 
ture in  the  surface  water :  the  large  areas  of  ice  in 
their  immediate  neighborhood  make  the  fact  worth 
noting. 

During  this  fog,  we  made  fast  to  a  permanent  floe, 
awaiting  our  consort,  the  Rescue.  The  ice  mean- 
while drifted  rapidly  to  the  northward  and  westward, 
while  the  wind  was  from  the  opposite  quarter. 

We  sighted  to-day  a  second  spire  of  trap,  resembling 


I 


.:rlj^:.i^<\ 


^OS;'5^*^ 


*-•  ■     ■      \  ■  i,'*  '■»!  ■■■■,■     ■ 


■'■<  '■  ■  *'     ^^r-'V>^iiii^il.^E^"S"<*'''^*' ■''■■-  V     .•  ■^■*'^•-.•i*|;^%<^•^;'^■ 

'■-'i.-:.  '  ■■  .v-..,/  ■.■.■:'■  •■  ■  '■  ■•■ ...  -'r^ . -■'  ■>;.  .■...■•-^.^■^m'ifM-j ■  ■ 


^•■v-       ..';^  .^■;:v  ■  ,:^:-; 


r^ 


:   ■■"-  '  ■•' .  —4**'.       '-. '    .  '  ■■/  ~  '  .*.;■        ■»''  ^,*fe  .    .,   ■-. 

^^  vv«;v    :,  'v./,v  -s:^-' -^^-'r    -.■■■■•>■ 


^•>^s 


••/^-  ■       ■"■■■■    ."  r-m-  V'^v,"•:^«J*tv*^ '.■   cv^-y^  r- ■■■■■.       ,. ^      . 


v';:^i;-5'- 


.":  ■'■■; 


i'",i 
n" 


'•'.Hi  . 


If 


in 


i-7n 


•ll'tV 


.l^lfMi    </l 


«       'IK   l> 


jM/t*-   -^  .vt  v*ju  cquit'    '  .  ■  .  '  ■••V 

f   ;' ;   jnot  tliiiik   ihiit  w*  _.^  ■,         -4    .  >; 

f'<  r  itn  occasion  tlnit  never  (nLnuj.     Mr  L«iv».?i;.  tifi^'*r 
'.'d  )ri>  bulletin  the  base  oHLie  brain,  killing  bis  uui- 
^    nifil  i<(  fir<t  shDt;  but,  while  \vh-  were  .socarlnp^  iiim, 
ihe  ro.-T  ?Mr^''-^l  tail,  g-ainod  thf^*  fi'»e^  rtnti  escapi-ii 


'^*?«- 

- 

■v^K<' 

^"^^ 

Jl    ■'(.,.1     !i;. 


^VtUl  tt» 


'j$>  -A*'  -'-' 


lliv  ;•■  r'seace  of  a  bolt  •  i  W'*/xu  \w- ^n.  MiuvuintM-''  i>s 
the  sauiv  ico  jjitlnencf:?  wbicb  'b^prt?^s,ed  it  b^'tovfv  i 
]m-:o  bu'i  '•^iH'^sij.twl  occasion,  Mill b»  pass",! ag  through  thii^ 
\my,  t'-  'h'v»'   >n»bbm  elc  vuf'«ins  ot"  tr-mpeni- 

■     water:  the  s;irtje  .\ve;i^!.  <.,  ;■  <    jm 
-  >>^?!bt>rhooil  nial: '  th--  i*.^  i   ^^•(•rj 


►-    •<■*;». 


'.  vi^f  t*i|^  5  ^,  wv-  ^#%4f?  fkst  to  a  p<?nui;!u;nt  {Uu\ 
■^%._   ::'^    fimrQiX      The  iee  nn-'fri- 
i^iyttv  #4^  *'.;rtbw;.ml  ami  westward 
fmrv.  ^  i>','.^ito  quarter. 

•wr^Hsd  spir«*  ^jf  trap,  \'ei<» ,i ,  - ^ .  ■ 


'  I 


1?' 


'm 

''H 

1 

1 

m 

mt 

i 


ROUGH    WEATHER. 


121 


the  Devil's  Thumb.  It  was  Lord  Melville's  Monu- 
ment ;  so  named  by  Sir  John  Ross.  The  islands 
which  are  marked  on  the  chart  as  "  Brown's"  we  did 
not  see,  though  we  passed  near  their  assumed  position. 

"August  10.  Another  day  of  sunshine.  Were  we 
in  the  Mediterranean,  there  could  not  be  a  warmer 
sky.  It  ends  with  the  sky  though ;  for  our  thermom- 
eters fell  at  four  A.M.  to  24°.  A  careful  set  of  observa- 
tions with  Green's  standard  thermometers  gave  18° 
as  the  diflference  between  the  sunshine  and  shade  at 
noonday.  The  young  ice  was  nearly  an  inch  thick. 
Myriads  of  Auks  were  seen,  and  the  usual  supply  duly 
slaughtered. 

"  Melville's  Monument  appeared  to-day  under  a  new 
phase,  rising  out  from  the  surrounding  floe  ice,  either 
a  salient  peninsula  or  an  isolated  rock.  - 

"  The  land  ice  measured  but  five  feet  seven  inches, 
the  reduced  growth,  probably,  of  a  single  season.  The 
open  leads  multiply,  for  we  made  under  sail  about 
fifteen  miles  N.N.W." 

As  the  next  day  glided  in,  the  skies  became  over- 
cast, and  the  wind  rose.  Mist  gathered  about  the 
horizon,  shutting  out  the  icebergs.  The  floes,  which 
had  opened  before  with  a  slender  wind  from  the  north- 
ward, now  shed  off  dusty  wreaths  of  snow,  and  began 
to  close  rapidly. 

Moving  along  in  our  little  river  passage,  we  ob- 
served it  growing  almost  too  narrow  for  navigation, 
and  every  now  and  then,  where  a  projecting  cape 
stretched  out  toward  this  advancing  ice,  we  had  to 
run  the  gauntlet  between  the  opposing  margins. 

It  is  under  these  circumstances,  with  a  gale  prob' 
ably  outside,  and  a  fog  gathering  around,  that  the 
whalers,  less  strengthened  than  ourselves,  and  taught 


r  f 


;■         1 


»  t. 
1  ■ 


122 


HUMMOCKING. 


%i 


by  a  fearful  experience,  seek  protecting  bights  among 
the  floes  or  cut  harbors  in  the  ice.  For  us,  the  word 
delay  did  not  enter  into  our  commander's  thoughts. 
We  had  not  purchased  caution  by  disaster ;  and  it 
was  essential  to  success  that  we  should  make  the 
most  of  this  Godsend,  a  "slant"  from  the  southeast. 

We  pushed  on ;  but  the  Rescue,  less  fortunate  than 
ourselves,  could  not  follow.  She  was  jammed  in  be- 
tween two  closing  surfaces.  We  were  looking  out 
for  a  temporary  niche  in  which  to  secure  ourselves, 
when  we  were  challenged  to  the  bear  hunt  I  have 
spoken  of  a  few  pages  back. 

Upon  regaining  the  deck  with  Mr.  Lovell's  prize,  we 
were  struck  with  the  indications  of  a  brooding  wind 
outside.  The  ice  was  closing  in  every  direction ;  and 
our  master,  Mr.  Murdaugh,  had  no  alternative  but  to 
tie  up  and  await  events.  The  Rescue  did  the  same, 
some  three  hundred  yards  to  the  southward. 

By  five  A.M.,  a  projecting  edge  of  the  outside  floe 
came  into  contact  with  our  own,  at  a  point  midway 
between  the  two  vessels.  This  assailing  floe  was  three 
feet  eight  inches  thick,  perhaps  a  mile  in  diameter, 
and  moving  at  a  rate  of  a  knot  an  hour.  Its  weight 
was  some  two  or  three  millions  of  tons.  So  irresistible 
was  its  momentum,  that,  as  it  impinged  against  the 
solid  margin  of  the  land  ice,  there  was  no  recoil,  no  in- 
terruption to  its  progress.  The  elastic  material  cor- 
rugated before  the  enormous  pressure  ;  then  cracked, 
then  crumbled,  and  at  last  rose,  the  lesser  over  the 
greater,  sliding  up  in  great  inclined  planes :  and  these, 
again,  breaking  by  their  weight  and  their  continued 
impulse,  toppled  over  in  long  lines  of  fragmentary  ice. 

This  imposing  process  of  dynamics  is  called 
"  Hummocking."     Its  most  striking  feature  was  its 


i  f 


A    PINCH. 


123 


unswerving,  unchecked  continuousness.  The  mere 
commotion  was  hardly  proportioned  either  to  the  in- 
tensity of  the  force  or  the  tremendous  effects  which  it 
produced.  Tables  of  white  marble  were  thrust  into 
the  air,  as  if  by  invisible  machinery. 

First,  an  inclined  face  would  rise,  say  ten  feet ;  then 
you  would  hear  a  grinding,  tooth-pulling  crunch :  it 
has  cracked  at  its  base,  and  a  second  is  sliding  up 
upon  it.  Over  this,  again,  comes  a  third ;  and  here- 
upon the  first  breaks  down,  carrying  with  it  the  sec- 
ond ;  and  just  as  you  are  expecting  to  see  the  whole 
pile  disappear,  up  comes  a  fourth,  larger  than  any  of 
the  rest,  and  converts  all  its  predecessors  into  a  cha- 
otic mass  of  crushed  marble.  Now  the  fragments  thus 
comminuted  are  about  the  size  of  an  old-fashioned 
Conestoga  wagon,  and  the  line  thus  eating  its  way  is 
several  hundred  yards  long. 

The  action  soon  began  to  near  our  brig,  which  now, 
fast  by  a  heavy  cable,  stood  bows  on  awaiting  the 
onset.  It  was  an  uncomfortable  time  for  us,  as  we 
momentarily  expected  it  to  "  nip"  her  sides,  or  bear 
her  down  with  the  pressure.  But,  thanks  to  the  in- 
verted wedge  action  of  her  bows,  she  shot  out  like  a 
squeezed  water-melon  seed,  snapping  her  hawser  like 
pack-thread,  and  backing  into  wider  quarters.  The 
Rescue  was  borne  almost  to  her  beam  ends,  but  event- 
ually rose  upon  the  ice.  The  rudders  of  both  brigs 
were  unshipped. 

This  closure  of  the  seaward  ice  upon  the  land  floe 
was  evidently  connected  with  a  change  of  winds.  On 
the  day  before,  the  10th,  the  ice  had  relaxed  all  around 
us,  under  a  gentle  air  from  the  northward ;  but  a  grad- 
ually increasing  breeze  from  the  E.S.E.,  commencing 
about  nine  in  the  evening,  had  tightened  the  floes, 


P 


I 


4i' 


124 


ICE     OPENS CRUSTACEA. 


and  this  morning  bore  them  down  upon  us.  As  the 
wind  hauled  to  the  S.S.E.,  the  ice  opened  again ;  and 
on  the  early  morning  of  the  twelfth  we  warped  ahead 
into  a  safer  berth. 

We  cast  off  again  about  7  A.M. ;  and  after  a  weari- 
some  day  of  warping,  tracking,  towing,  and  sailing, 
advanced  some  six  or  eight  miles,  along  a  coast-line 
of  hills  to  the  northeast,  edged  with  glaciers. 

The  currents  were  such  as  to  entirely  destroy  our 
steerage  way.  Our  rudder  was  for  a  time  useless; 
and  the  surface  water  was  covered  by  ripple  marks, 
which  flowed  in  strangely  looping  curves.  On  the 
13th  the  sea  abounded  with  life.  Cetochili,  as  well 
as  other  entomostracan  forms  which  I  had  not  seen  be- 
fore, lined,  and,  in  fact,  tinted  the  margins  of  the  floe 
ice ;  and  for  the  first  time  I  noticed  among  them  some 
of  those  higher  orders  of  crustacean  life,  which  had 
heretofore  been  only  found  adhering  to  our  warping 
lines.  Among  these  were  asellus  and  idotea,  and  that 
jerking  little  amphipod,  the  gammarus.  Acalephse 
and  limacinae  abounded  in  the  quiet  leads.  The  birds, 
too,  were  back  with  us,  the  mollemoke,  the  Ivory  gull, 
the  Burgomaster,  and  the  tern ;  and  while  the  little 
Auks  crowded  the  floes  below,  feeding  eagerly  upon 
the  abundant  harvest  of  the  ice,  the  air  above  us  was 
filled  with  swooping  crowds,  equally  intent  on  their 
marine  pasture  grounds.  I  can  not  think  that  the 
powerful  mandible  of  the  Fulmar  petrels  ever  conde- 
scends to  the  surface  forms  of  acalephaB.  It  is  true 
that  they  follow  in  the  stormy  wake  of  vessels,  like 
the  Mother  Carey's  chickens,  but  their  food  is  of  a 
higher  grade.  It  was  a  curious  spectacle  to  see  them 
fighting  for  the  garbage  of  our  vessel,  and  gormandiz- 
ing on  the  blubber  of  our  game. 


GOING    AHEAD. 


125 


We  saw  to-day  two  Rorqual  whales  (Rorqualis  Bo- 
realis),  apparently  feeding  upon  these  living  waters. 
They  were  the  first  that  we  had  seen  since  leaving 
Disco.  We  hailed  them  as  an  earnest  of  an  open  sea. 
As  the  day  grew  older,  a  breeze  carried  us  along  glo- 
riously. We  made  at  least  twenty  miles  upon  our 
course  ;  and  although  we  were  forced  to  cut  through 
some  intercepting  ice,  it  became  evident  that  we  had 
passed  the  trials  of  the  bay,  and  were  hourly  approach- 
ing the  North  Water. 

The  shore,  which  we  had  been  so  long  skirting, 
again  rose  into  mountains  ;  on  whose  bouthern  flanks, 
as  they  receded,  we  could  still  see  the  great  glacier. 
We  had  traced  it  all  the  way  from  the  Devil's  Thumb 
in  a  nearly  continuous  circuit;  now  we  were  about 
to  lose  it.  The  icebergs  had  sensibly  diminished  al 
ready. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

As  the  afternoon  advanced,  we  had  another  visit  of 
the  phenomena  of  refraction  This  time  they  passed 
before  us  in  all  the  costumes  and  mutations  of  a  car- 
nival frolic.  I  am  afraid  to  paint  them  from  recollec- 
tion, and  would  make  an  apology,  if  I  could,  for  the 
seeming  extravagance  with  which  they  reflect  them- 
selves in  my  journal. 

"  6  P.M  Refraction  again !  There  is  a  black  globe 
floating  in  the  air,  about  3°  north  of  the  sun.  What 
it  is  you  can  not  tell.  Is  it  a  bird  or  a  balloon  ?  Pres- 
ently comes  a  sort  of  shimmering  about  its  circumfer- 
ence, and  on  a  sudden  it  changes  its  «hape.  Now 
you  see  plainly  what  it  is.  It  is  a  grand  piano,  and 
nothing  else.  Too  quick  this  time  !  You  had  hardly 
named  it,  before  it  was  an  anvil — an  anvil  large  enough 
for  Mulciber  and  his  Cyclops  to  beat  out  the  loadstone 
of  the  poles.  You  have  not  got  it  quite  adjusted  to 
your  satisfaction,  before  your  anvil  itself  is  changing ; 
it  contracts  itself  centrewise,  and  rounds  itself  end- 
wise, and,  presto,  it  has  made  itself  duplicate — a  pair 
of  colossal  dumb-bells.  A  moment!  and  it  is  the 
black  globe  again." 


REFRACTION. 


127 


About  an  hour  after  this  necromantic  juggle,  the 
whole  horizon  became  distorted:  great  bergs  lifted 
themselves  above  it,  and  a  pearly  sky  and  pearly 
water  blended  with  each  other  in  such  a  way,  that 
you  could  not  determine  where  the  one  began  or  the 
other  ended.  Your  ship  was  in  the  concave  of  a  vast 
sphere ;  ice  shapes  of  indescribable  variety  around  you, 
floating,  like  yourself,  on  nothingness ;  the  flight  of  a 
bird  as  apparent  in  the  deeps  of  the  sea  as  in  the 
continuous  element  above.  Nothing  could  be  more 
curiously  beautiful  than  our  consort  the  Rescue,  as 
she  lay  in  mid-space,  duplicated  by  her  secondary  im- 
age. 

This  unequally  refractive  condition  continued  on 
into  the  next  day ;  diminishing  as  the  sun  approached 
his  meridian  altitude,  but  again  coming  back  in  the 
afternoon  with  augmented  intensity.  The  appearance 
at  night  was  more  wonderful  than  it  had  been  on  the 
12th.  I  am  desirous  to  give  the  impressions  it  made 
on  me  at  the  moment,  and  I  therefore  copy  again 
from  my  journal,  without  erasing  or  modifying  a  sin- 
gle line. 

"August  13.  To-night,  at  ten  o'clock,  we  were  op- 
posite a  striking  cliff",  supposed  to  be  Cape  Melville, 
when,  attracted  by  the  irregular  radiation  from  the 
snn,  then  about  two  hours  from  the  lowest  point  of 
his  curve,  I  saw  suddenly  flaring  up  all  around  him 
the  signs  of  active  combustion.  Great  volumes  of 
black  smoke  rose  above  the  horizon,  narrowing  and 
expanding  as  it  rolled  away.  Black  specks,  to  which 
the  eye,  by  its  compensation  for  distance,  gave  the  size 
of  masses,  mingled  with  it,  rising  and  falling,  appear- 
ing and  disappearing ;  and  above  all  this  was  the  pe- 
culiar waving  movement  of  air,  rarefied  by  an  adjacent 


II 


I 


I  I 


ill 


128 


REFRACTION. 


heat.     The  whole  intervening  atmosphere  was  dis- 
turbed and  flickering. 

"  Upon  looking  at  tl^is  curious  spectacle  through  our 
best  Fraunhofer  glass,  the  clearly  defined  edges  of  a 
number  of  large  icebergs  could  be  seen,  borne  by  re- 
fraction into  the  air,  duplicated  by  inversion,  and  pre- 
serving that  vertical  parallelism  of  sides  before  alluded 
to  as  characteristic  of  the  refracted  berg.  From  the 
lower  face  of  their  inverted  images  were  exhaling — 
if  I  may  use  the  word — ^those  wonderful  clouds  of  ap- 
parent smoke.  Here,  too,  at  an  altitude  which,  judg- 
ing by  the  bases  of  the  bergs,  corresponded  to  the  re- 
fracted or  secondary  horizon,  a  lateral  distortion  sent 
out  huge  tongues,  like  projecting  rafters,  which,  when 
not  obscured  by  the  '  smoke,'  contrasted  black  against 
the  sky.  All  this  was  so  combined  with  architectur- 
al forms,  that  it  was  hard  to  avoid  the  impression  of 
some  mighty  city  in  conflagration." 

During  all  these  phenomena,  the  position  of  the  sun 
with  reference  to  the  elevated  object  had  a  marked 
influence.  Immediately  below  his  disk,  the  excessive 
illumination  prevented  my  taking  altitudes  by  the  sex- 
tant ;  but  on  either  side  of  it,  to  a  distance  of  twenty 
degrees,  I  could  note  that  the  false  horizon,  which  I 
had  selected  as  an  index  of  the  uplift,  rose  as  it  reced- 
ed  from  the  sun.  A  similarly  progressive  elevation  of 
the  refracted  bergs  was  observable  by  the  unassisted 
eye.     The  range  thus  noted  was  from  .06'  to  1°  40'. 

The  entire  sea  at  this  time  was  studded  with  frag- 
ments of  floating  ice.  Heretofore  the  more  striking 
manifestations  of  this  sort  of  refraction  had  occurred 
on  warm  sunny  days,  when  the  area  immediately  ad- 
jacent to  us  was  entirely  ice-bound  ;  and  we  had  re- 
marked, on  several  occasions,  that  the  presence  of  open 


THE    CUISINE. 


129 


water  between  us  and  the  sun  had  the  effect  of  de- 
pressing the  refracted  images.  I  have  prepared  some 
curious  tables,  indicating  the  relation  of  the  surface 
temperature  of  the  water  to  the  temperature  of  the  air 
on  board  ship.     They  would  be  out  of  place  here. 

Another  extract  from  my  journal  of  the  next  morn- 
ing has  less  of  imaginative  interest : 

"August  14.  I  have  just  returned  from  a  couple  of 
hours'  ho  ting.  Wit-h  two  sailors  to  row,  and  as 
many  ships'  muskets  to  slay  with,  I  brought  back  sev- 
enty birds.  They  are  more  scattered  than  they  were, 
not  flocking  along  the  floes,  but  covering  the  sea.  I 
notice  them,  with  their  crops  full  of  shrimps,  the  un- 
grateful little  gluttons,  winging  their  way  off  to  shore- 
ward. 

"  We  are  living  luxuriously.  Yesterday  our  French 
cook,  Henri,  gave  us  a  salmi  of  Auks,  worthy  of  the 
Trots  Freres ;  and  to-day  I  enjoyed  an  Arctic  imitation 
of  a  trussed  partridge.  Bear  is  strong,  very  strong, 
and  withal  most  capricious  meat;  you  can  not  tell 
where  to  find  him.  One  day  he  is  quite  beefy  and 
bearable ;  another,  hircine,  hippuric,  and  damnable. 
As  a  part  of  my  Polar  practice,  I  make  it  a  point — al- 
beit I  esteem  a  discriminating  palate — to  eat  of  every 
thing ;  and,  in  the  course  of  my  culinary  experience,  I 
have  already  managed  to  convert  several  outcast  eat- 
ables to  good  palatable  food.  Seal  is  not  fishy,  but 
sealy ;  and  with  a  little  patience  and  a  good  deal  of 
sauce  piquante,  is  very  excellent  diet.  The  mollemoke 
is  the  hardest  to  manage ;  the  infiltration  of  fatty  mat- 
ter is  rather  alarming.  But  I  give  my  method,  for 
future  maitres  d^hotels  who  may  task  themselves  in 
these  regions.  Cut  off  his  breast;  fling  every  thing 
else  to  his  fellows,  who  are  waiting  for  him  outside ; 

I 


m  \ 


1  *.  I 


iy 


h     : 


130 


GLACIERS. 


rub  with  soda;  wash  out  the  soap  thus  freely  made; 
parboil  and  pickle.  The  bird  is,  after  all,  not  so  de- 
testable, early  in  the  season.  At  the  Hudson  Bay's 
settlements  they  preserve  him  in  salt.  Sea-gull  is 
worthy  of  all  honorable  mention.  The  Jilet  of  a  large 
Ivory  one  is  a  morceau  between  a  spring  chicken  and 
our  own  unsurpassed  canvas  back.  As  to  these  little 
Guillemots  or  Auks  (Uria  alle,  or  alke),  quocunque  no- 
mine gaudent,  like  all  birds  feeding  on  crustaceal  life, 
they  are  very  red  in  meat,  juicy,  fat,  delicate,  and  fla- 
vorsome,  something  between  a  blue- wing  and  a  Dela- 
ware rail ;  in  a  word,  the  perfection  of  good  eating. 

"  We  ran  along  the  coast  to-day  with  gentle  airs, 
and  near  enough  to  keep  me  busy  with  my  pencil. 
Glacier  after  glacier  met  us,  and  the  background  of 
rounding  snow-covered  mountains  contrasted  finely 
with  the  square  blocking  of  the  rugged  precipices  at 
the  water-line.  These  glaciers,  however,  were  de- 
tached, not  running  in  continuous  curves  along  the 
coast,  but  abutting  from  opening  valleys.  The  struc- 
ture of  the  shore  was  evidently  metamorphic.  It  re- 
minded me  of  some  portions  of  our  Alleghany  ridge, 
and  I  even  thought  that  I  could  distinguish  in  the  ar- 
rangement of  these  valley  indentations  our  own  famil- 
iar form  of  anticlinal  rupture. 

"Although  icebergs  still  crowd  the  horizon,  and 
some  two  hundred  of  them  can  be  counted  within  the 
eye  circle,  we  are  evidently  fast  getting  rid  of  the  ice. 
It  is  true  that  the  shore  pack  still  stretches  out  close 
upon  our  left — a  barrier  apparently  as  permanent  as 
the  glaciered  hills  with  which  it  is  united ;  but  to  sea- 
ward, open  water-leads  gladden  us  in  every  direction. 
We  forced  to-day  through  but  one  floe  tongue,  using 
the  hawser  and  windlass  about  an  hour.    With  this  ex- 


ADVANTAGES    OF    STEAMER. 


131 


ception,  we  have  had  no  drawback  but  that  capricious 
and  feeble  motive  power,  upon  which,  under  the  most 
favorable  circumstances,  our  little  craft  is  dependent. 
How  often,  when  retarded  by  baffling  winds  or  unfa- 
voring  leads,  have  I  wished  for  a  few  hours  of  steam !" 

The  arguments  in  favor  of  a  towing  steamer  to  pro- 
mote the  transit  of  this  tedious  bay  seem  to  me  very 
simple  and  conclusive.  The  linear  distance,  including 
tortuosities,  is  but  three  hundred  miles,  or  two  days' 
run.  It  had  cost  us  already,  including  our  besetment 
off  the  Thumb,  five  weeks. 

The  causes  of  this  delay  were  either  closed  ice,  calms 
and  adverse  surface  currents,  contrary  winds,  or  baf- 
fling leads.  None  of  these,  except  the  first,  would 
have  arrested  a  steamer.  The  predominant  winds  of 
July  and  August  are,  to  use  the  expression  of  the  whal- 
ers, "  closing  winds  ;"  and,  except  casters  and  south- 
easters  (true),  which  are  comparatively  rare  and  of 
short  continuance,  all  the  "  opening  winds"  are  con- 
trary, and  impracticable  for  sailing  vessels. 

I  have  observed  that  in  calm  weather,  especially 
if  it  continues  for  some  time,  the  ice  becomes  less  te- 
nacious, and  opens  gradually  in  leads ;  but  sails  are 
powerless  in  a  calm.  Slight  airs  from  the  north  al- 
ways relaxed  the  ice,  and  these  were  frequent;  yet 
here,  too,  we  were  hampered,  for  the  north  wind  was 
dead  ahead ;  and,  while  it  lasted,  we  had  nothing  to 
do  but  tie  up  and  await  a  change. 

Even  in  that  rare  conjunction  of  an  opening  wind 
and  a  favoring  wind,  the  tortuous  leads  may  utterly 
check  the  navigator's  advance.  When  a  "  slant"  from 
the  southward  and  eastward  did  come,  as  my  wind 
tables  will  show  that  it  sometimes  did,  a  single  tongue 
of  ice  or  a  zigzag  lead  would  delay  us  until  the  favor- 


i 


I 


132 


ESQUIMAUX. 


I* 


f^ 


If 


ing  opportunity  had  gone  by.  In  all  of  these  cases  a 
steamer  would  have  been  of  incalculable  advantage. 

*^  August  15.  The  Rescue,  which  has  proved  herself 
a  dull  sailer,  had  lagged  astern  of  us,  when  our  master, 
Mr.  Murdaugh,  observed  the  signal  of  *men  ashore' 
flying  from  her  peak.  We  were  now  as  far  north  as 
latitude  75°  58',  and  the  idea  of  hum^an  life  somehow 
or  other  involuntarily  connected  itself  with  disaster. 
A  boat  was  hastily  stocked  with  provisions  and  dis- 
patched for  the  shore.  Two  men  were  there  upon 
the  land  ice,  gesticulating  in  grotesque  and  not  very 
decent  pantomime — genuine,  unmitigated  Esquimaux. 
Verging  on  76°  is  a  far  northern  limit  for  human  life; 
yet  these  poor  animals  were  as  fat  as  the  bears  which 
we  killed  a  few  days  ago.  Their  hair,  mane-like, 
flowed  over  their  oily  cheeks,  and  their  countenances 
had  the  true  prognathous  character  seen  so  rarely 
among  the  adulterated  breeds  of  the  Danish  settle- 
ments.  They  were  jolly,  laughing  fellows,  full  of  so- 
cial feeling.  Their  dress  consisted  of  a  bear-skin  pair 
of  breeches,  considerably  the  worse  for  wear;  a  seal- 
skin jacket,  hooded,  but  not  pointed  at  its  skirt ;  and 
a  pair  of  coarsely-stitched  seal-hide  boots.  They  were 
armed  with  a  lance,  harpoon,  and  air-bladder,  for  spear- 
ing seals  upon  the  land  floe.  The  kaiack,  with  its 
host  of  resources,  they  seemed  unacquainted  with. 

"  When  questioned  by  Mr.  Murdaugh,  to  whom  I 
owe  these  details,  they  indicated  five  huts,  or  fam- 
ilies, or  individuals,  toward  a  sort  of  valley  between 
two  hills.  They  were  ignorant  of  the  use  of  bread, 
and  rejected  salt  beef;  but  they  appeared  familiar 
with  ships,  and  would  have  gladly  invited  themselves 
to  visit  us,  if  the  ofliicer  had  not  inhospitably  declined 
the  honor." 


;!!« 
iil| 


FROZEN    FAMILIES. 


133 


It  was  not  very  far  from  Cape  York  that  we  met 
these  men.  They  belonged,  probably,  to  the  same  de- 
tached parties  of  seal  and  fish  catching  coast  nomads, 
that  were  met  by  Sir  John  Ross  in  his  voyage  of  1819, 
and  whom  he  designated,  fancifully  enough,  as  the 
"Arctic  Highlanders." 

Eleven  years  after  his  visit,  some  boat-crews,  from 
a  whaler  which  had  escaped  the  ice  disasters  of  1830, 
landed  at  nearly  the  same  spot,  and  made  for  a  group 
of  huts.  They  were  struck  as  they  approached  them 
to  find  no  beaten  snow-tracks  about  the  entrance,  nor 
any  of  the  more  unsavory  indications  of  an  Esquimaux 
homestead.  The  riddle  was  read  when  they  lifted  up 
the  skin  curtain,  that  served  to  cover  at  once  doorway 
and  window.  Grouped  around  an  oilless  lamp,  in  the 
attitudes  of  life,  were  four  or  five  human  corpses,  with 
darkened  lip  and  sunken  eyeball ;  but  all  else  preserved 
in  perennial  ice.  The  frozen  dog  lay  beside  his  frozen 
master,  and  the  child,  stark  and  stiff,  in  the  reindeer 
hood  which  enveloped  the  frozen  mother.  The  cause 
was  a  mystery,  for  the  hunting  apparatus  was  near 
them,  and  the  bay  abounds  with  seals,  the  habitual  food, 
and  light,  and  fire  of  the  Esquimaux.  Perhaps  the  ex- 
cessive cold  had  shut  off  their  supplies  for  a  time  by 
closing  the  ice-holes — perhaps  an  epidemic  had  strick- 
en them.  Some  three  or  four  huts  that  were  near  had 
the  same  melancholy  furniture  of  extinct  life. 


ESQUIMAUX   ON  SNOW-SHOES. 


•«» 


I 


'Wf 

Mm 

'  '^^H^H'-  ' 

'^^DKlfl^ 

',Hhp 

^flp' 

Bessie's  cove. 


CHAPTER  XVni. 

We  sailed  along  the  coast  quietly,  but  with  the  com- 
fortable excitement  of  expectation.  We  had  not  yet 
seen  such  open  water,  and  were  momentarily  expect- 
ing the  change,  of  course,  which  was  to  lead  us  through 
the  North  Water  to  Lancaster  Sound.  The  glaciers 
were  no  longer  near  the  water-line ;  but  an  escarped 
shore,  of  the  usual  primary  structure,  gave  us  a  pleas- 
ing substitute. 

In  a  short  time  we  reached  the  "  Crimson  Cliffs  of 
Beverley,"  the  seat  of  the  often-described  "  red  snow." 
The  coast  was  high  and  rugged,  the  sea-line  broken 
by  precipitous  sections  and  choked  by  detritus.  Sail- 
ing slowly  along,  at  a  distance  of  about  ten  miles,  we 
could  distinctly  see  outcropping  faces  of  red  feldspathic 
rock,  while  in  depending  positions,  between  the  cones 
of  detritus,  the  scanty  patches  of  snow  were  tinged 


BESSIE   S    COVE. 


135 


with  a  brick-dust  or  brown  stain.  It  is  true  that  we 
could  not  see  the  "  Crimson"  of  Sir  John  Ross,  who 
gave  to  this  spot  its  somewhat  euphonious  title ;  but 
the  locality  was  not  without  indications  which  should 
excuse  this  gallant  navigator  from  imputations  against 
his  veracity  of  narrative.  The  bright  red  outcroppings 
of  the  feldspar,  the  scarlet  patches  of  a  lichen  (Lepra- 
ria)  which  was  in  extreme  abundance,  and,  finally, 
the  excretions  of  the  numerous  birds  that  resort  to 
these  cliffs,  might,  in  favoring  seasons,  combine  with 
the  snow  in  such  a  manner  as  to  give  at  a  distance 
the  tint  which  he  has  described. 

But  it  fell  calm,  and  I  had  an  opportunity  of  visit- 
ing  the  shore.  The  place  where  we  landed  was  in 
latitude  76°  04'  N.,  nearly.  It  was  a  little  cove,  bor- 
dered on  one  side  by  a  glacier  ;  on  the  other,  watered 
by  distillations  from  it,  and  green  with  luxuriant 
.nosses.  It  was,  indeed,  a  fairy  little  spot,  brightened, 
?erhaps,  by  its  contrast  with  the  icy  element,  on  which 
i  had  been  floating  for  a  month  and  a  half  before  ;  yet 
even  now,  as  it  comes  back  to  me  in  beautiful  com- 
panionship with  many  sweet  places  of  the  earth,  I  am 
sure  that  its  charms  were  real. 

The  glacier  came  down  by  a  twisted  circuit  from  a 
deep  valley,  which  it  nearly  filled.  As  it  approached 
the  sea,  it  seemed  unable  to  spread  itself  over  the  horse- 
shoe-like expansion  in  which  we  stood ;  but,  retaining 
still  the  impress  marks  of  its  own  little  valley  birth- 
place, it  rose  up  in  a  huge  dome-like  escarpment,  one 
side  frozen  to  the  cliffs,  the  other  a  wall  beside  us,  and 
the  end  a  rounded  mass  protruding  into  the  sea. 

Close  by  the  foot  of  its  precipitous  face,  in  a  fur- 
rowed water-course,  was  a  mountain  torrent,  which, 
emerging  from  the  point  at  which  the  glacier  met  the 


if 

1 1! 


;11 


In 


I 


!| 


l!         '- 


;!■ 


ii 


i 


m 


m 


I  •{ 


136 


GLACIER    FORMATION. 


hill,  came  dashing  wildly  over  the  rocks,  green  with 
the  mosses  and  carices  of  Arctic  vegetation ;  while 
from  the  dome-like  summit  a  stream,  that  had  tun- 
neled its  way  through  the  ice  from  the  valley  still 
higher  above,  burst  out  like  a  fountain,  and  fell  in  a 
cascade  of  foam- whitened  water  into  the  sea. 

The  glacier  itself  was  of  the  class  which  Saussure 
has  designated  as  the  second  order.  It  was  a  small 
but  elegant  type  of  glacial  structure,  and  was  to  me 
conclusive  as  to  the  identity  in  all  essential  features 
of  the  Polar  and  Alpine  ice-growths.  Its  material  was 
hard  but  vesicular  ice,  and  seemed  marked  by  strati- 
fied bands  rudely  parallel  with  its  rocky  base.  These 
bands  commenced  with  bluish-green  compact  ice,  near- 
ly transparent,  and  then  gradually  shaded  off  as  they 
rose  into  a  more  vesicular  structure,  which  ended  in 
an  almost  granular  whiteness. 

These  markings,  which  I  had  an  opportunity  after- 
ward of  studying  in  the  bergs,  were  seemingly  inde- 
pendent of  veined  or  ribboned  structure.  I  look  upon 
them  as  indices  of  the  annual  growth ;  made  up  by 
the  snows  and  atmospheric  deposits  of  the  non-thaw- 
ing season,  gradually  melted,  compressed,  and  refrozen 
during  the  alternating  temperatures  of  the  summer 
months.  This  view  will  explain  the  compact,  trans- 
parent character  of  the  lower  portions  of  the  band,  and 
also  its  gradual  transition  into  a  nearly  granular  ma- 
terial ;  for  the  surface  thaws  and  rains  which  follow 
the  long  winter  growth,  percolating  to  the  bottom, 
would  impress  the  mass  throughout  its  extent  with 
these  different  changes. 

The  direction  of  these  lines  was  thus  nearly  in  the 
long  axis  of  the  glacier.  As  they  descended  to  the 
surface  of  its  trough,  a  gradually  deepening  earth-stain 


V'-A 


GLACIERS. 


137 


made  the  stratification  for  a  time  more  apparent ;  but 
near  its  base  its  substance  was  so  incorporated  with 
detritus  and  pasty  silt,  that  it  was  hard  to  distinguish 
it  from  soil. 

The  shape  of  the  mass  which  protruded  into  the 
cove  was  that  of  a  horse-shoe,  its  curve  pointing  to  the 
west  upon  the  waters  of  the  bay.  Its  northern  side 
was  flanked  by  the  walls  of  the  valley ;  but  its  entire 
southern  sweep  was  completely  clear  and  unobstruct- 
ed. On  this  I  made  the  observations  which  I  have 
just  detailed. 

It  is  with  mortification  that  I  confess  that  I  had  not 
then  made  myself  familiar  with  the  views  detailed  by 
Professor  Forbes  in  his  work  on  the  Pennine  Alps; 
for  it  has  since  occurred  to  me  that  this  so-called  dome 
was  of  a  true  scallop-shell  shape,  and  might,  perhaps, 
have  illustrated  the  conoidal  structure,  which  forms  so 
beautiful  a  feature  of  the  viscous  theory.  But  I  have 
thought  it  best  to  adhere  to  my  original  remarks,  lest 
I  should  impair  the  value  of  my  facts  by  connecting 
them  with  views  not  directly  imparted  by  the  occa- 
sion. 

Four  of  these  bands  I  succeeded,  with  some  trouble, 
in  measuring.  They  ranged  from  sixteen  to  nineteen 
inches  in  width.  The  height  of  the  glacier  where  it 
entored  the  sea  was  eighty-four  feet.  Sixty  paces  back 
from  its  face,  measured  rudely  by  stepping  a  corre- 
sponding line  of  ground,  its  height  was  but  seventy ; 
and  it  there  spread  itself  out  so  as  to  cover  a  greater 
area,  and  its  sides  were  less  precipitous.  Its  protrusion 
into  the  sea  beyond  the  water-line  was  but  eight  feet, 
passing  over  a  bottom  of  rounded  pebbles,  none  of 
which  presented  facettes  of  attrition.  The  depth  of 
the  portion  thus  immersed  could  be  sounded  with  a 


I  I 


i    I 


138 


RED    SNOW. 


i 


JM  ^ 

IHi4 


m 

mm' 

urn 


■•Jf; 


boat-hook;  and  through  the  clear  liquid  I  could  see 
that  a  sort  of  beveling  prevented  the  ice-mass  from 
actual  contact  with  the  bottom. 

Our  very  limited  time  prevented  me  from  tracing 
this  glacier  up  to  its  trough,  my  entire  attention  being 
occupied  with  its  presenting  face.  Captain  De  Haven, 
who  walked  for  a  mile  and  a  half  up  the  valley,  de- 
scribed it  to  me  as  rapidly  diminishing  in  size,  and  de- 
riving contributions  from  the  ice-streams  of  several 
minor  valleys. 

I  made  a  careful  sketch  of  the  configuration  of  this 
cove.  Sandstones  and  coarse  conglomerates,  rounded 
porphyritic  quartzes  and  altered  slates,  with  green- 
stone and  amygdaloids,  chlorites  and  actynolites,  &c., 
were  found  freely  among  the  loose  material  spread  out 
over  the  shore.  The  detritus  from  the  cliffs  was  ex- 
cessive, and  the  effect  of  frost  as  a  degrading  agent 
strikingly  manifest. 

But  the  object  which  seemed  to  usurp  the  undi- 
vided attention  of  our  party  was  the  red  snow.  It 
abounded  in  the  depressions  between  the  slopes  of  de- 
posited detritus,  and  wherever  a  protected  or  depend- 
ant hollow  gave  protection  from  excessive  wind  or 
thaw.  It  was  never  seen  unless  in  association  with 
foreign  matter,  such  as  the  fronds  of  lichens  or  fila- 
ments of  moss.  Its  surface  was  always  contaminated 
by  these  accumulations,  and  1  observed  that  the  color 
of  the  Protococcus  was  most  decided  when  they  were 
in  greatest  abundance.  This  I  mention,  not  for  its 
bearing  upon  the  question  whether  unmixed  snow  can 
act  as  a  vegetative  matrix,  but  as  indicating,  for  the 
locality  in  question,  an  adventitious  source  for  the  sup- 
ply of  ammonia.  I  may  say,  while  upon  the  subject 
of  this  interesting  production,  that  I  subsequently  col- 


Sfl 


I ' 


ATMOSPHERIC  TRANSFERS. 


139 


lected  it  at  Barlow's  Inlet  and  Point  Innes,  on  both 
sides  of  Wellington  Sound  and  in  Baffin's  Bay,  at  va- 
rious points,  as  high  as  latitude  76°  15' ;  but  in  no  in- 
stance, throughout  this  extended  range,  from  snow  un- 
sullied by  extraneous  vegetable  matter. 

This  growth,  however,  under  a  modified  and  less 
luxuriant  form,  may  take  place  upon  an  apparently 
unsullied  and  isolated  surface ;  for,  in  addition  to  its 
high  mountain  localities,  as  described  by  Saussure, 
Bier,  and  others,  Parry  found  it  upon  the  Spitzbergen 
ice-fields;  and  I  myself,  in  the  May  of  1851,  met  with 
it  on  the  floe  ice  of  Baffin's  Bay  fifty  miles  from  any 
land. 

But  I  would  suggest  that,  e/en  in  these  far-removed 
situations,  we  can  not  positively  assert  the  exemption 
of  the  atmosphere  from  organic  matter.  By  this  I  do 
not  mean  merely  effluvia,  acetic  and  hippuric  acids, 
&c.,  &CC.,  as  detected  by  Fresenius  and  others,  but  a 
direct  transportation  of  visibly  organized  material. 
The  highly-polished  and  dry  surface  of  the  Arctic 
winter-ice  admits  of  such  transportation  to  an  almost 
indefinite  extent.  I  have  exhibited  to  the  American 
Philosophical  Society  filaments  of  mosses  sufficiently 
large  to  be  recognized  as  such  by  the  unassisted  eye, 
which  I  collected  on  the  ice  off"  Cape  Adair  in  the 
month  of  February,  1851,  some  seventy  odd  miles  from 
the  shore. 

The  atmospheric  transfer  of  volcanic  ash,  or  the  still 
more  remarkable  infusorial  [Polythalamia,  etc.)  dust 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  has  struck  me  as  not  superior  in 
interest  to  this  diffusion  of  organic  sporules  over  the 
Arctic  snows. 

To  return  to  the  "  Crimson  Cliffs."  We  found  the 
red  snow  in  greatest  abundance  upon  a  talus  fronting 


if  I 


I'! 


i 


140 


RED    SNOW. 


to  the  southwest,  which  stretched  obliquely  across  the 
glacier  at  the  seat  of  its  emergence  from  the  valley. 
It  was  here  in  great  abundance,  staining  the  surface 
in  patches  six  or  eight  yards  in  diametier.  Similar 
patches  were  to  be  seen  at  short  intervals  extending 
up  the  valley. 

Its  color  was  a  deep  but  not  bright  red.  It  resem- 
bled, with  its  accompanying  impurities,  crushed  pre- 
served cranberries,  with  the  seed  and  capsule  strewn 
over  the  snow.  It  imparted  to  paper  drawn  over  it  a 
nearly  cherry-red,  or  perhaps  crimson  stain,  which  be- 
came brown  with  exposure ;  and  a  handful  thawed 
in  a  glass  tumbler  resembled  muddy  claret. 

Its  coloring  matter  was  evidently  soluble ;  for,  on 
scraping  away  the  surface,  we  found  that  it  had  dyed 
the  snow  beneath  with  a  pure  and  beautiful  rose  color, 
which  penetrated,  with  a  gradually  softening  tint, 
some  eight  inches  below  the  surface. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

At  4  P.M.  we  left  this  interesting  spot,  for  which 
some  pleasant  associations  had  suggested  to  me  the 
name  of  "  Bessie's  Cove,"  and  commenced  beating  to 
the  northward.  The  sea  was  crowded  with  entomos- 
traca  and  clios,  on  which  myriads  of  Auks  were  feed- 
ing. The  prospects  of  open  water  were  most  cheering. 
One  mile  from  the  shore,  we  got  soundings  in  rooky 
bottom,  at  twenty-three  fathoms,  and  then,  wishing  to 
"  fill  up"  with  water  before  attempting  our  passage  to 
the  west,  we  stood  close  in,  seeking  a  favorable  spot. 

About  eleven  o'clock  we  were  attracted  by  a  bight, 
midway  between  Capes  York  and  Dudley  Diggs.  Its 
foreground  was  of  rugged  syenitic  rocks,  and  over  these 
we  could  distinctly  see  the  water  rushing  down  in  a 
foaming  torrent.     Here  was  a  watering-place. 

By  means  of  our  old  friends  the  warps,  we  hauled  in 
so  close  that  the  sides  of  our  vessels  touched  the  rocks. 
A  few  inches  only  intervened  between  our  keel  and 
the  shining  pebbles.  We  could  jump  on  shore  as  from 
a  wharf  The  sun  was  so  low  at  this  midnight  hour 
as  to  bathe  every  thing  in  an  atmosphere  of  Italian 
pink,  deliciously  unlike  the  Arctic  regions.  The  recess 
was  in  blackest  shadow,  but  the  cliffs  which  formed 
the  walls  of  the  cove  rose  up  into  full  sunshine.  The 
Auks  crowded  these  rocks  in  myriads.  So,  with  gun 
and  sextant,  I  started  on  a  tramp. 

This  range,  called  by  Sir  John  Ross  the  "  Arctic 
Highlands,"  is  not  simply  a  continuation  of  the  !Du- 

ist  ridge,  observed 


neira 


part  of  a  great 


it 


142 


FLORULA. 


IJ 


on  either  side  of  the  so-called  Peninsula  of  Greenland. 
The  culminating  peak  of  the  northern  abutment  of  this 
indentation  gave  me,  trigonometrically,  1383  feet;  and 
others,  more  distant,  were  at  least  one  third  higher. 

The  cove  itself  measured  but  six  hundred  yards  from 
bluff  to  bluff.  It  was  recessed  in  a  regular  ellipse,  or 
rather  horseshoe,  around  which  the  strongly-featured 
gneisses,  relieved,  as  usual,  with  the  outcroppings  of 
feldspar,  formed  lofty  mural  precipices.  I  estimated 
their  mean  elevation  at  twelve  hundred  feet.  At  their 
bases  a  mass  of  schistose  rubbish  had  accumulated. 

I  have  described  this  recess  as  a  perfect  horseshoe : 
it  was  not  exactly  such,  for  at  its  northeast  end  a  rug- 
ged little  water-feeder,  formed  by  the  melting  snows, 
sent  down  a  stream  of  foam  which  buried  itself  under 
the  frozen  surface  of  a  lake.  Yet  to  the  eye  it  was  a 
nearly  absolute  theatre,  this  little  cove,  and  its  arena 
a  moss-covered  succession  of  terraces,  each  of  indescrib- 
able richness. 

Strange  as  it  seemed,  on  the  immediate  level  of  snow 
and  ice,  the  constant  infiltrations,  aided  by  solar  rever- 
beration, had  made  an  Arctic  garden-spot.  The  sur- 
face of  the  moss,  owing,  probably,  to  the  extreme  altern- 
ations of  heat  and  cold,  was  divided  into  regular  hex- 
agons and  other  polyhedral  figures,  and  scattered  over 
these,  nestling  between  the  tufts,  and  forming  little 
groups  on  their  southern  faces,  was  a  quiet,  unobtru- 
sive community  of  Alpine  flowering  plants.  The  weak- 
ness of  individual  growth  allowed  no  ambitious  species 
to  overpower  its  neighbor,  so  that  many  families  were 
crowded  together  in  a  rich  flower-bed.  In  a  little  space 
that  I  could  cover  with  my  pea-jacket,  the  veined  leaves 
of  the  Pyrola  were  peeping  out  among  chickweeds  and 
saxifrages,  the  sorrel  and  Ranunculus.    I  even  found  a 


FLORULA. 


143 


poor  gentian,  stunted  and  reduced,  but  still,  like  every 
thing  around  it,  in  all  the  perfection  of  miniature  pro- 
portions. 

As  this  mossy  parterre  approached  the  rocky  walls 
that  hemmed  it  in,  tussocks  of  sedges  and  coarse  grass 
began  to  show  themselves,  mixed  with  heaths  and 
birches ;  and  still  further  on,  at  the  margin  of  the  horse- 
shoe, and  fringing  its  union  with  the  stupendous  piles 
of  debris,  came  an  annulus  of  Arctic  shrubs  and  trees. 

Shrubs  and  trees !  the  words  recall  a  smile,  for  they 
only  typed  those  natives  of  another  zone.  The  poor 
things  had  lost  their  uprightness,  and  learned  to  escape 
the  elements  by  trailing  along  the  rocks.  Few  rose 
above  my  shoes,  and  none  above  my  ankles ;  yet  shady 
alleys  and  heaven-pointing  avenues  could  not  be  more 
impressive  examples  of  creative  adaptation.  Here  I 
saw  the  bleaberry  {Vaccinium  uliginosum)  in  flower 
and  in  fruit — I  could  cover  it  with  a  wine-glass ;  the 
wild  honeysuckle  [Azalea  procumbens)  of  our  Penn- 
sylvania woods — I  could  stick  the  entire  plant  in  my 
button-hole ;  the  Andromeda  tetragona,  like  a  green 
marabou  feather. 

Strangest  among  these  transformations  came  the 
willows.  One,  the  Salix  herhacea,  hardly  larger  than 
a  trefoil  clover ;  another,  the  S.  glauca,  like  a  young 
althea,  just  bursting  from  its  seed.  A  third,  the  S. 
lanata,  a  triton  among  these  boreal  minnows,  looked 
like  an  unfortunate  garter-snake,  bound  here  and  there 
by  claw-like  radicles,  which,  unable  to  penetrate  the 
inhospitable  soil,  had  spread  themselves  out  upon  the 
surface — traps  for  the  broken  lichens  and  fostering 
moss  which  formed  its  scanty  mould. 

I  had  several  opportunities,  while  taking  sextant  el- 
evations of  the  headlands,  to  measure  the  moss-beds 


144 


ml 


MOSS-BEDS. 


them  with  a  pointed  staff     Th      ^  ^'"'"^^  *™»gl' 
investing  mould,  built  IL      ^^  """''""  '°™e<i  an 

atoned  a  n.ej ^XZ^ZT'^Ar  ""«'  '*  '^^ 
the  sea  h„e,  it  ^^  f        ^^Z^-^   At  one  place,  near 

processes  of  Arctic  deoom^!  /•      .  ^^^  ^"'^  the  slow 
^  'oyed  the  delicate  rStd  Y  ""*  •'''*-'^  "e 
of  the  pioneering  lichens  werTstnf""'-     ''''«  fro"*)^ 
tan^gled  among  the  rest  '"  '•««ogm2able,  en. 

counted  sixty-eiffht  inlf^     "^ vegetable  periods     T 
chemical  pr„L:fb;"in::"'""''<^"^     ^hose 

Af(S:redTgStm^--^-*''e 

r---Ser:s^^^^^^^^^^ 

three  hundred  feet  ^  hig^  „;!/':'•  "^  talus,  some 

e-es  against  the  mural  Ic  t  oTSr""''^  P^^ 
lnerewaa<!nm/ifi,-       ,     *=  "^  tne  cliff. 

-"h  its  en^r  f  :S  t  ^'^^^^-^--^P'-e, 
and  steep  angle  of  dep^t  'w  ^^^  ^^"^  distribution 
-t.e  of  the  destructive'Ig  i  '  ^^"5""^  '"'^-*- 
I  had  never  seen,  not  evH  h/^  """^^''^tion. 
tj-aps  of  India  and  South  ttLt^"^?  "^the  mural 
than  either,  our  own  Connecticut  l'*""''  P^'^aps, 
aotive  degradation.    It  i  "no?* ~''"''' «^idences  of 

,  ;  I  »py  .he  „„„,er  of .,,,»  ,ave,       ,  ^*"''°«^'*'  ^lone 

s  me  to  retain  in 


! 


s  from  the 
ig  through 
formed  an 
ntil  it  had 
jiace,  near 
3  the  slow 
itirely  de- 
'he  fronds 
zable,  en- 

r  diminu- 
Briods.  I 
^  Those 
s  our  au- 
ths  work 

y  at  the 
lebris  of 
ssive  in- 
s,  some 
ke  proc- 

plane, 
[bution, 
iracter- 
flation. 

mural 

rhaps, 
Ices  of 

alone 

Jial;  yet 

|hy  of  a 

not  so 

^tain  Id 


.  :.,/«!,• 


<v.,>'':^^:^^ 


•f*SfJlfltv^-5^- 


t  , .  *  '^    ■^■,*  *  ".,  -    ■■■'  «■ 


■-*r'.aA%: 


m 


ft, 


144 


'*»«■    f: 


MOSS-BEDS. 


'til   b 


)  ■■^■•i'ti'in'i  vvj! 


i^i'.  (ItMuuIed  fa<v.,.,  ^,,j  ty 


''f-iii  \vj.Ui 


i;'vt^*.-[,ng,„j,,^l^j^  j.,.^iTj 


"'    |>01Ut»-t}     t^y.Jl  r^'^ 


-inetJ 


up    j;,yt  f 


i«^*-^  mo.^.se*  jorijj 


upon 


».Vl      Ui? 


fj 


't^" '^-a  Lju<    ., 


^^'<^"»'W.    ^A.-ie<.t.    Ar 


'^  'Jiihl  It.  It.  (I 


^'^■rcy^d  the  ,h: 


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H^^-. 


Aad 


evMf, 


hud 


'  .  '  • Hi 


''?<?  tin 


fn. 


K-  (i, 


t; 


'!••  pi'»nr.-nn<i 


^ii'}  «j4»inj».     i 


^■'^'•-•'1  ;iii] 


•*-■     'Vt.'»« 


Olli 


still 


hij 


\<i  u 


^;  •"'■•  roi^t. 


■f^t-'^lfiU/ithlf 


>''M>  iiHie  lux 


«^r;i   It 


:,".    ■■■'"'^''M«'V!,m,fr,-.Vf,„,,:''  ','-''''  "'■ 


\f 


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■/-•■■-;■•■•--.:. .£'„r:;r:r: 

'■  ;{^- :^  "«UMu  marked  in  ,,v,o.n.;.     .   . 
'fd  ^('.r  u,rg,>  nwnV,.     ..      ,  , 


I  ! 


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<'-p 


i   'it'  S«>.     ,...     .1.  ,,^,!,. 

icir^t-  :.|.s  thisi      .f.. . 

<hi.'  !c',\t. 


1 


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ilit  it  j,;  <( 
» *.''',  >  ar 
ill*;  sltrvv 

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out   :iu.. 


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!,<*•.:' 


'f>.    \    > 


'fc 


t^„,  ' 


AUKS      NESTS. 


145 


that  these  talus  or  debris  are  impressive.  They  tell  of 
changes  which  have  begun  and  been  going  on  since 
the  existence  of  the  earth  in  its  present  state  by  the 
friction  of  time  against  its  surface ;  and  they  carry  us 
on  with  solemn  force  to  the  period  when  the  dehiscent 
edges  and  mountain  ravines  of  this  same  earth  shall 
have  been  worn  down  into  rounded  hill  and  gentle  val- 
ley. Well  may  they  be  called  "  geological  chronome- 
ters."* They  point  with  impressive  finger  to  the  ro- 
tation of  years.  The  dial-plate  and  the  index  are  both 
there,  and  human  wisdom  almost  deciphers  the  nota- 
tion! 

On  the  steeper  flanks  of  these  rocky  cones  the  little 
Auks  had  built  their  nests.  The  season  of  incubation, 
though  far  advanced,  had  not  gone  by,  for  the  young 
fledglings  were  looking  down  upon  me  in  thousands ; 
and  the  mothers,  with  crops  full  of  provender,  were 
constantly  arriving  from  the  sea.  Urged  by  a  wish  to 
study  the  domestic  habits  of  these  little  Arctic  emi- 
grants at  their  homestead,  I  foolishly  clambered  up  to 
one  of  their  most  popular  colonies,  without  thinking 
of  my  descent. 

The  angle  of  deposit  was  already  very  great,  not 
much  less  than  50° ;  and  as  I  moved  on,  with  a  walk- 
ing-pole substituted  for  my  gun,  I  was  not  surprised  to 
find  the  fragments  receding  under  my  feet,  and  rolling, 
with  a  resounding  crash,  to  the  plain  below.  Stop- 
ping, however,  to  regain  my  breath,  I  found  that  above, 
beneath,  around  me,  every  thing  was  in  motion.  The 
entire  surface  seemed  to  be  sliding  down.  Ridiculous 
as  it  may  seem  to  dwell  upon  a  matter  apparently  so 
trivial,  my  position  became  one  of  danger.  The  accel- 
erated velocity  of  the  masses  caused  them  to  leap  off 

*  Mantell's  "  Wonders  of  Geology."" 

K 


11 


146 


TRAPPING    THE    AUKS. 


in  deflected  lines.  Several  uncomfortable  fragments 
had  already  passed  by  me,  some  even  over  my  head, 
and  my  walking-pole  was  jerked  from  my  hands  and 
buried  in  the  ruins.  Thus  helpless,  I  commenced  my 
own  half-involuntary  descent,  expecting  momentarily 
to  follow  my  pole,  when  my  eye  caught  a  projecting 
outcrop  of  feldspar,  against  which  the  strong  current 
split  into  two  minor  streams.  This,  with  some  hard 
jumps,  I  succeeded  in  reaching. 

As  I  sat  upon  the  temporary  security  of  this  little 
rock,  surrounded  by  falling  fragments,  and  awaiting 
their  slow  adjustment  to  a  new  equilibrium  before  I 
ventured  to  descend,  I  was  struck  with  the  Arctic  orig- 
inality of  every  thing  around.  It  was  midnight,  and 
the  sun,  now  to  the  north,  was  hidden  by  the  rocks ; 
but  the  whole  atmosphere  was  pink  with  light.  Over 
head  and  around  me  whirled  innumerable  crowds  of 
Auks  and  Ivory  gulls,  screeching  with  execrable  clam- 
or, almost  in  contact  with  my  person.  On  tht.  frozen 
lake  below,  contrasting  with  its  snowy  covering,  were 
a  couple  of  ravens,  fighting  zealously  for  a  morsel  of 
garbage ;  and  high  up,  on  the  crags  above  me,  sat 
some  unmoved,  phlegmatic  burgomasters. 

I  missed  my  opportunity  of  inspecting  the  nests  of 
the  Auks.  They  issued  from  the  crevices  between 
the  detached  fragments,  and,  it  is  probable,  deposit- 
ed  their  eggs,  like  other  Uria,  upon  the  naked  rock. 
Some  of  the  men  succeeded  in  reaching  their  squabs 
by  introducing  their  arms.  It  is  said  that  the  Esqui- 
maux trap  them  by  spreading  out  their  clothing  oppo- 
site  these  apertures,  so  that  the  birds,  when  disturbed, 
pass  into  and  fill  the  sleeves  and  legs. 

While  at  this  cove,  I  saw  at  a  distance  a  black  ani- 
mal, which,  but  for  its  apparently  lesser  size,  I  would 


"I    f 


A    BLACK    FOX. 


147 


have  taken  for  a  fox.  One  of  our  officers  fired  at  anoth- 
er, and  I  saw  a  third  fifteen  miles  further  north,  hoth 
of  which  were  undouhtedly  of  the  same  species. 

They  were  probably  the  "  black  fox"  of  Sir  John 
Ross,  about  which  there  has  been  much  discussion. 
Throwing  aside  less  obvious  marks  of  distinction,  this 
fox  was  dark  sooty  brown  or  black,  not  blue,  nor,  as  I 
am  disposed  to  think,  of  the  shed  summer-coat-color 
of  the  white  fox  ( Canis  lagopus).  Its  pinched  expres- 
sion of  head  and  diminished  size  might  be  explained 
by  the  absence  of  its  winter  covering. 

The  rest  of  the  day  was  beautifully  clear.  We  spent 
it  in  working  to  windward,  and  at  4  P.M.  again  land- 
ed to  get  observations.  This  spot,  the  most  northern 
that  we  reached  in  Baffin's  Bay,  was  in  latitude  76°  25'. 
I  here  saw  and  collected  in  the  protected  nooks,  among 
the  grasses  and  saxifrages,  a  large  number  of  the  Coch- 
learia  {C.  Danica)  and  Ranunculus.  Emberiza  and 
Plectrophanes  were  seen  also. 

The  calm  which  had  given  us  these  two  days  of 
shore  rambles  left  us  suddenly  on  the  18th.  We  stood 
towards  Wolstenholme  Sound,  and  bore  across  to  the 
west  in  more  open  water  than  we  had  seen  for  several 
weeks.  It  was  now  beyond  doubt  that  we  were  to 
winter  somewhere  among  the  scenes  of  arctic  trial. 
We  were  past  the  barrier,  heading  direct  for  Lancas- 
ter Sound,  with  the  motion  of  waves  once  more  under 
us,  and  a  breeze  aloft.  As  I  refer  to  my  journal,  I  see 
how  the  tone  of  feeling  rose  among  our  little  party 
We  began  again  with  something  of  confidence  to  con- 
nect the  probable  results  with  the  objects  of  the  ex- 
pedition. We  had  lost  three  weeks  off  the  Devil's 
Tongue,  the  British  steamers  were  far  ahead  of  us  in 
point  of  time,  and  their  superior  ability  and  practice 


I;  V. 


148 


GOOD-BY    TO    BAFFIN. 


|M| 

¥ 

i^m 

m\ 

1^ 

n 

'  ^m 

'■ 

twm 

f 

BujjrT' 

£' 

'^m 

«! 

H 

fi 

'fl 

M'l 

Wm 

1 

would  still  keep  them  in  the  advance ;  and  we  were 
ignorant  of  their  course  and  intended  scheme  of  search. 
We  had  dreamed  hefcre  this,  and  pleasantly  enough, 
of  fellowship  with  them  in  our  efforts,  dividing  be- 
tween us  the  hazards  of  the  way,  and  perhaps  in  the 
long  winter  holding  with  them  the  cheery  intercourse 
of  kindred  sympathies.  We  waked  now  to  the  proh- 
abilities  of  passing  the  dark  days  alone.  Yet  fairly  on 
the  way,  an  energetic  commander,  a  united  ship's  com- 
pany, the  wind  freshening,  our  well-tried  little  ice- 
boat now  groping  her  way  like  a  blind  man  through 
fog  and  bergs,  and  now  dashing  on  as  if  reckless  of  all 
but  success — it  was  impossible  to  repress  a  sentiment 
almost  akin  to  the  so-called  joyous  excitement  of  con- 
flict. 

We  were  bidding  good-by  to  "ye  goode  baye  of  old 
William  Baffin ;"  and  as  we  looked  round  with  a  fare- 
well remembrance  upon  the  still  water,  the  diminished 
icebergs,  and  the  constant  sun  which  had  served  us  so 
long  and  faithfully,  we  felt  that  the  bay  had  used  us 
kindly. 

Though  I  had  read  a  good  deal  in  the  voyagers' 
books  about  Baffin's  Bay,  I  had  strangely  and  entirely 
misconceived  the  prominent  features  of  its  summer 
scenery.  There  is  a  combination  of  warmth  and  cold 
in  the  tone  of  its  landscapes,  a  daring,  eccentric  vari- 
ety of  forms,  an  intense  clearness,  almost  energy  of  ex- 
pression,  which  might  tax  Turner  and  Stanfield  to- 
gether  to  reproduce  them  with  an  approach  to  truth. 
How  could  they  trace  the  features  of  the  iceberg,  melt- 
ing into  shapes  so  boldly  marked,  yet  so  undefined ;  or 
body  forth  its  cold  varieties  of  unshaded  white,  or  the 
azure  clare-obscure  of  the  ice-chasrn!  There  are  the 
black  hills,  blots  upon  rolling  snow ;  the  ice-plain,  mar- 


i 


CONTINUOUS    DAYLIGHT. 


149 


gined  with  glaciers,  and  jutting  out  in  capes  from  the 
cliffed  shore :  there  is  the  still  blue  water.  Or,  if  you 
want  action  instead  of  repose,  here  is  the  crashing  floe, 
the  grinding  hummock,  and  the  monumental  berg  ris- 
ing above  both !  itself,  though  perishable,  a  seeming 
permanency  compared  with  the  ephemeral  ruins  that 
beat  against  its  sides. 

All  this  is  attempered  by  the  warm  glazing  of  a  tint- 
ed atmosphere.  The  sky  of  Baffin's  Bay,  though  but 
eight  hundred  miles  from  the  Polar  limit  of  all  north- 
ernness,  is  as  warm  as  the  Bay  of  Naples  after  a  June 
rain.  What  artist,  then,  could  give  this  mysterious 
union  of  warm  atmosphere  and  cold  landscape  ? 

The  perpetual  daylight  had  continued  up  to  this 
moment  with  unabated  glare.  The  sun  had  reached 
his  north  meridian  altitude  some  days  before,  but  the 
eye  was  hardly  aware  of  change.  Midnight  had  a 
softened  character,  like  the  low  summer's  sun  at  home, 
but  there  was  no  twilight. 

At  first  the  novelty  of  this  great  unvarying  day 
made  it  pleasing.  It  was  curious  to  see  the  "  mid- 
night Arctic  sun  set  into  sunrise,"  and  pleasant  to  find 
that,  whether  you  ate  or  slept,  or  idled  or  toiled,  the 
same  daylight  was  always  there.  No  irksome  night 
forced  upon  you  its  system  of  compulsory  alternations. 
I  could  dine  at  midnight,  sup  at  breakfast-tirne,  and 
go  to  bed  at  noonday ;  and  but  for  an  apparatus  of 
coils  and  cogs,  called  Oi  watch,  would  have  been  no 
wiser  and  no  worse. 

My  feeling  was  at  first  an  extravagant  sense  of  un- 
defined relief,  of  some  vague  restraint  removed.  I 
seemeH  to  have  thrown  off"  the  slavery  of  hours.  In 
fact,  I  could  hardly  realize  its  entirety.  The  astral 
lamps,  standing,  dust-covered,  on  our  lockers — I  am 


I  •  ■" 


loO 


CONTINUOUS    DAYLIGHT. 


III 


)('< 


quoting  the  words  of  my  journal — puzzled  me,  as 
things  obsolete  and  fanciful. 

This  Wcts  mstinctive,  perhaps ;  but  by-and-by  came 
other  feelings.  The  perpetual  light,  garish  and  un- 
fluctuating, disturbed  me.  I  became  gradually  aware 
of  an  unknown  excitant,  a  stimulus,  acting  constant- 
ly, like  the  diminutive  of  a  cup  of  strong  coffee.  My 
sleep  was  curtailed  and  irregular ;  my  meal  hours  trod 
upon  each  other's  heels ;  and  but  for  stringent  regula- 
tions of  my  own  imposing,  my  routine  would  have 
been  completely  broken  up. 

My  lot  had  been  cast  in  the  zone  of  liriodendrons  and 
sugar-maples,  in  the  nearly  midway  latitude  of  40°. 
I  had  been  habituated  to  day  and  night ;  and  every 
portion  of  these  two  great  divisions  had  for  me  its  pe- 
riods of  peculiar  association.  Even  in  the  tropics,  I 
had  mourned  the  lost  twilight.  How  much  more  did 
I  miss  the  soothing  darkness,  of  which  twilight  should 
have  been  the  precursor !  I  began  to  feel,  with  more 
of  einoti(m  than  a  man  writing  for  others  likes  to  con- 
fess to,  how  admirable,  as  a  systematic  law,  is  the  al- 
ternation of  day  and  night — words  that  type  the  two 
great  conditions  of  living  nature,  action  and  repose. 
To  those  who  with  daily  labor  earn  the  daily  bread, 
how  kindly  the  season  of  sleep !  To  the  drone  who, 
urged  by  the  waning  daylight,  hastens  the  deferred 
task,  how  fortunate  that  his  procrastination  has  not  a 
six  months'  morrow!  To  the  brain-workers  among 
men,  the  enthusiasts,  who  bear  irksomely  the  dark 
screen  which  falls  upon  their  day-dreams,  how  benig- 
nant the  dear  night  blessing,  which  enforces  reluctant 
rest! 


i 


l^iJ!, 


\ 


;^'vj%ir!?'n^i:;-.  -^ 


f^yf.rv'^emf: 


%i^  7 


DEECHY.   KHOM    POINT   INNES. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

"Ay gust  19.  The  wind  continued  freshening,  the 
Aneroid  falling  two  tenths  in  the  night.  Ahout  eight 
I  was  called  by  our  master,  with  the  news  that  a 
couple  of  vessels  were  following  in  our  wake.  We 
were  shortening  sail  for  our  consort ;  and  by  half  past 
twelve,  the  larger  stranger,  the  Lady  Franklin,  came 
up  along  side  of  us.  A  cordial  greeting,  such  as  those 
only  know  who  have  been  pelted  for  weeks  in  the  sol- 
itudes of  Arctic  ice — and  we  learned  that  this  was 
Captiiin  Penny's  squadron,  bound  on  the  same  pursuit 
as  ourselves.  A  hurried  interchange  of  news  followed. 
The  ice  in  Melville  Bay  had  bothered  both  parties 
alike ;  Commodore  Austin,  with  his  steamer  tenders, 
was  three  days  ago  at  Carey's  Islands,  a  group  near- 
ly as  high  as  77"  north  latitude;  the  North  Star^  the 
missing  provision  transport  of  last  summer,  was  safe 


■m 


152 


ENTERING    LANCASTER    SOUND. 


somewhere  in  Lancaster  Sound,  probably  at  Leopold 
Island.     For  the  rest,  God  speed  ! 

"  As  she  slowly  forged  ahead,  there  came  over  the 
rough  sea  that  good  old  English  hurra,  which  we  in- 
herit  on  our  side  the  water.  '  Three  cheers,  hearty, 
with  a  will !'  indicating  as  much  of  brotherhood  as 
sympathy.  '  Stand  aloft,  boys !'  and  we  gave  back  the 
greeting.  One  cheer  more  of  acknowledgment  on  each 
side,  aiul  the  sister  flags  separated,  each  on  its  errand 
of  mercy. 

"  8  P.M.  The  breeze  has  freshened  to  a  gale.  Fogs 
have  closed  round  us,  and  we  are  driving  ahead  again, 
with  look-outs  on  every  side.  We  have  no  observa- 
tion ;  but  by  estimate  we  must  have  got  into  Lancas- 
ter Sound. 

"  The  sea  is  short  and  excessive.  Every  thing  on 
deck,  even  anchors  and  quarter- boats,  have  '  let cIkhI 
away,'  and  the  little  cabin  is  half  afloat.  The  Rescue 
is  staggering  under  heavy  sail  astern  of  us.  We  are 
making  six  or  seven  knots  an  hour.  Murdaugh  is 
ahead,  looking  out  for  ice  and  rocks;  De  Haven  con- 
ning the  ship. 

"  All  at  once  a  high  mountain  shore  rises  before  us, 
and  a  couple  of  isolated  rocks  show  themselves,  not 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  ahead,  white  with  break- 
ers.    Both  vessels  are  laid  to." 

The  storm  reminded  me  of  a  Mexican  "  norther." 
It  was  not  till  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day  that  we 
were  able  to  resume  our  track,  under  a  double-reefed 
top-sail,  stay-sail,  and  spencer.  We  wore,  of  course, 
without  observation  still,  and  could  only  reckon  that 
we  had  passed  the  Cunningham  Mountains  and  Cape 
Warrender. 

About  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  21st,  an- 


'I  ! 


SIR    JOHN    ROSS. 


153 


other  sail  was  reported  ahead,  a  top-sail  schooner,  tow- 
ing after  her  what  appeared  to  be  a  launch,  decked 
over. 

"  When  I  reached  the  deck,  we  were  nearly  up  to 
her,  for  we  had  shaken  out  our  reefs,  and  were  driving 
before  the  wind,  shipping  seas  at  every  roll.  The  lit- 
tle schooner  was  under  a  single  close-reefed  top-sail,  and 
seemed  fluttering  over  the  waves  like  a  crippled  bird. 
Presently  an  old  fellow,  with  a  cloak  tossed  over  his 
night  gear,  appeared  in  the  lee  gangway,  and  saluted 
with  a  voice  that  rose  above  the  winds. 

"It  was  the  Felix,  commanded  by  that  practical 
Arctic  veteran.  Sir  John  Ross.  I  shall  never  forget  the 
heartiness  with  which  the  hailing  officer  sang  out,  in 
the  midst  of  our  dialogue,  *  You  and  I  are  ahead  of  them 
all.'  It  was  so  indeed.  Austin,  with  two  vessels,  was 
at  Pond's  Bay ;  Penny  was  somewhere  in  the  gale ; 
and  others  of  Austin's  squadron  were  exploring  the 
north  side  of  the  Sound.  The  Felix  and  the  Advance 
were  on  the  lead. 

"  Before  we  separated.  Sir  John  Ross  came  on  deck, 
and  stood  at  the  side  of  his  officer.  He  was  a  square- 
built  man,  apparently  very  little  stricken  in  years,  and 
well  able  to  bear  his  part  in  the  toils  and  hazards  of 
life.  He  has  been  wounded  in  four  several  engage- 
ments— twice  desperately — and  is  scarred  from  head 
to  foot.  He  has  conducted  two  Polar  expeditions  al- 
ready, and  performed  in  one  of  them  the  unparalleled 
feat  of  wintering  four  years  in  Arctic  snows.  And 
here  he  is  again,  in  a  flimsy  cockle-shell,  after  contrib- 
uting his  purse  and  his  influence,  embarked  himself  in 
the  crusade  of  search  for  a  lost  comrade.  We  met  him 
off"  Admiralty  Inlet,  just  about  the  spot  at  which  he 
was  picked  up  seventeen  years  before." 


i  ■  1} 


<:, 


fl   1'^ 


154 


THE     PRINCE    ALBERT. 


Soon  after  midnight,  the  land  became  visible  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Sound.  We  had  passed  Cape  Charles 
Yorke  and  Cape  Crawfurd,  and  were  fanning  along 
sluggishly  with  all  the  sail  we  could  crowd  for  Port 
Leopold.  • 

It  was  the  next  day,  however,  before  we  came  in 
sight  of  the  island,  and  it  was  nearly  spent  when  we 
found  ourselves  slowly  approaching  Whaler  Point,  the 
seat  of  the  harbor.  Our  way  had  been  remarkably 
clear  of  ice  for  some  days,  and  we  were  vexed  to  find, 
therefore,  that  a  firm  and  rugged  barrier  extended  along 
the  western  shore  of  the  inlet,  and  apparently  across 
the  entrance  we  were  seeking. 

It  was  a  great  relief  to  us  to  see,  at  half  past  six  in 
the  evening,  a  top-sail  schooner  working  toward  us 
through  the  ice.  She  boarded  us  at  ten,  and  proved 
to  be  Lady  Franklin's  own  search- vessel,  the  Prince 
Albert. 

This  was  a  very  pleasant  meeting.  Captain  For- 
syth, who  commanded  the  Albert,  and  Mr.  Snow,  who 
acted  as  a  sort  of  adjutant  under  him,  were  very  agree- 
able gentlemen.  They  spent  some  hours  with  us, 
which  Mr.  Snow  has  remembered  kindly  in  the  journal 
he  has  published  since  his  return  to  England.  Their 
little  vessel  was  much  less  perfectly  fitted  than  ours  to 
encounter  the  perils  of  the  ice ;  but  in  ono  respect  at 
least  their  expedition  resembled  our  own.  They  had 
to  rough  it :  to  use  a  Western  phrase,  they  had  no  fan- 
cy fixings — nothing  but  what  a  hasty  outfit  and  a  lim- 
ited purse  could  supply.  They  were  now  bound  for 
Cape  Rennell,  after  which  they  proposed  making  a 
sledge  excursion  over  the  lower  Boothian  au-?  Cock- 
burne  lands. 

The  North  Star,  they  told  us,  had  been  caught  by 


CAPE    RILEY. 


155 


I 


the  ice  last  season  in  the  neighhorhood  of  our  own  first 
imprisonment,  off  the  Devil's  Thumb.  After  a  peril- 
ous drift,  she  had  succeeded  in  entering  Wolstenholme 
Sound,  whence,  after  a  tedious  winter,  she  had  only  re- 
cently arrived  at  Port  Bo  wen. 

They  followed  in  our  wake  the  next  day  as  we  push- 
ed through  many  streams  of  ice  across  the  strait.  We 
sighted  the  shore  about  five  miles  to  the  west  of  Cape 
Hurd  very  closely ;  a  miserable  wilderness,  rising  in 
terraces  of  broken-down  limestone,  arranged  between 
the  hills  like  a  vast  theatre. 

On  the  25th,  still  beating  through  the  ice  off"  Rad- 
stock  Bay,  we  discovered  on  Cape  Riley  two  cairns, 
one  of  them,  the  most  conspicuous,  with  a  flag-staff"  and 
ball.  A  couple  of  hours  after,  we  were  near  enough 
to  land.  The  cape  itself  is  a  low  projecting  tongue  of 
limestone,  but  at  a  short  distance  behind  it  the  cliff" 
rises  to  the  height  of  some  eight  hundred  feet.  We 
found  a  tin  canister  within  the  larger  cairn,  contain- 
ing the  information  that  Captain  Ommanney  had  been 
there  two  days  before  us,  with  the  Assistance  and  In- 
trepid, belonging  to  Captain  Austin's  squadron,  and 
had  discovered  traces  of  an  encampment,  and  other 
indications  "  that  some  party  belonging  to  her  Britan- 
nic majesty's  service  had  been  detained  at  this  spot." 
Similar  traces,  it  was  a*' led,  had  been  found  also  on 
Beechy  Island,  a  projection  on  the  channel  side  some 
ten  miles  from  Cape  Riley. 

Our  consort,  the  Rescue,  as  we  afterward  learned, 
had  shared  in  this  discovery,  though  the  British  com- 
mander's inscription  in  the  cairn,  as  well  as  his  offi- 
cial reports,  might  lead  perhaps  to  a  diff"erent  conclu- 
sion. Captain  Griffin,  in  fact,  landed  with  Captain 
Ommanney,  and  the  traces  were  registered  while  the 
two  officers  were  in  company. 


156 


FRANKLIN   S    ENCAMPMENT. 


■iSl 


\  .i\ 


•  v* 


MJ  J 


I  inspected  these  different  traces  very  carefully,  and 
noted  what  I  observed  at  the  moment.  The  appear- 
ances which  connect  them  with  the  story  of  Sir  John 
Franklin  have  been  described  by  others ;  but  there 
may  still  be  interest  in  a  description  of  them  made 
while  they  were  under  my  eye.  I  transcribe  it  word 
for  word  from  my  journal. 

"On  a  tongue  of  fossiliferous  limestone,  'onting  to- 
ward the  west  on  a  little  indentation  of  the  water,  and 
shielded  from  the  north  by  the  precipitous  cliffs,  are 
five  distinct  remnants  of  habitation. 

"  Nearest  the  cliffs,  four  circular  mounds  or  heap- 
ings-up  of  the  crumbled  limestone,  aided  by  larger 
stones  placed  at  the  outer  edge,  as  if  to  protect  the 
leash  of  a  tent.  Two  larger  stones,  with  an  interval 
of  two  feet,  fronting  the  west,  mark  the  places  of  en- 
trance. 

"  Several  large  square  stones,  so  arranged  as  to  serve 
probably  for  a  fire-place.  These  have  been  tumbled 
over  by  parties  before  us. 

"  More  distant  from  the  cliffs,  yet  in  line  with  the 
four  already  described,  is  a  larger  inclosure ;  the  door 
facing  south,  and  looking  toward  the  strait :  this  so- 
called  door  is  simply  an  entrance  made  of  large  ^lones 
placed  one  above  the  other.  The  inclosure  itself  tri- 
angular;  its  northern  side  about  eighteen  inches  high, 
built  up  of  flat  stones.  Some  bird  bones  and  one  rib 
of  a  seal  were  found  exactly  in  the  centre  of  this  tri- 
angle, as  if  a  party  had  sat  round  it  eating ;  and  the 
top  of  a  preserved  meat  case,  much  rusted,  was  found 
in  the  same  place.  I  picked  up  a  piece  of  canvas  or 
duck  on  the  cliff  side,  well  worn  by  the  weather :  the 
sailors  recognized  it  at  once  as  the  gore  of  a  pair  of 
trowsers. 


FRANKLIN    S    ENCAMPMENT. 


157 


"  A  fifth  circle  is  discernible  nearer  the  cliffs,  which 
may  have  belonged  to  the  same  party.  It  was  less 
perfect  than  the  others,  and  seemed  of  an  older  date. 

"  On  the  beach,  some  twenty  or  thirty  yards  from 
the  triangular  inclosure,  were  several  pieces  of  pine 
wood  about  four  inches  long,  painted  green,  and  white, 
and  black,  and,  in  one  instance,  puttied;  evidently 
parts  of  a  boat,  and  apparently  collected  as  kindling 
wood." 

The  indications  were  meagre,  but  the  conclusion 
they  led  to  was  irresistible.  They  could  not  be  the 
work  of  Esquimaux :  the  whole  character  of  them  con- 
tradicted it :  and  the  only  European  who  could  have 
visited  Cape  Riley  was  Parry,  twenty-eight  years  be- 
fore ;  and  we  knew  from  his  journal  that  he  had  not 
encamped  here.  Then,  again,  Ommanney's  discovery 
of  like  vestiges  on  Beechy  Island,  just  on  the  track  of 
a  party  moving  in  either  direction  between  it  and  the 
channel :  all  these  speak  of  a  land  party  from  Frank- 
lin's squadron. 

Our  commander  resolved  to  press  onward  along  the 
eastern  shore  of  Wellington  Channel.  We  were  un- 
der weigh  in  the  early  morning  of  the  26th,  and  work- 
ing along  with  our  consort  toward  Beechy — I  drop 
the  "  Island,"  for  it  is  more  strictly  a  peninsula  or  a 
promontory  of  limestone,  as  high  and  abrupt  as  that 
at  Cape  Riley,  connected  with  what  we  call  the  main 
by  a  low  isthmus.  Still  further  on  we  passed  Cape 
Spencer ;  then  a  fine  bluft' point,  called  by  Parry  Point 
Innes ;  and  further  on  again,  the  trend  being  to  the 
east  of  north,  we  saw  the  low  tongue.  Cape  Bowden. 
Parry  merely  sighted  these  points  from  a  distance,  so 
that  the  shore  line  has  never  been  traced.  I  sketch- 
ed it  myself  with  some  care ;  but  the  running  survey 


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158 


FRANKLIN   S    ENCAMPMENT. 


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of  this  celebrated  explorer  had  left  nothing  to  alter. 
To  the  north  of  Cape  Innes,  though  the  coast  retains 
the  same  geognostical  character,  the  bluff  promonto- 
ries subside  into  low  hills,  between  which  the  beach, 
composed  of  coarse  silicious  limestone,  sweeps  in  long 
curvilinear  terraces.  Measuring  some  of  these  rudely 
afterward,  I  found  that  the  elevation  of  the  highest 
plateau  did  not  exceed  forty  feet. 

Our  way  northward  was  along  an  ice  channel  close 
under  the  eastern  shore,  and  bounded  on  the  other  side 
by  the  ice-pack,  at  a  distance  varying  from  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  to  a  mile  and  three  quarters.  Off  Cape  Spen- 
cer the  way  seemed  more  open,  widening  perhaps  to 
two  miles,  and  showing  something  like  continued  free 
water  to  the  north  and  west.  Here  we  met  Captain 
Penny,  with  the  Lady  Franklin  and  Sophia.  He  told 
us  that  the  channel  was  completely  shut  in  ahead  by 
a  compact  ice  barrier,  whicl^  connected  itself  with  that 
to  the  west,  describing  a  horseshoe  bend.  He  thought 
a  southwester  was  coming  on,  and  counseled  us  to  pre- 
pare for  the  chances  of  an  impactment.  The  go-ahead 
determination  which  characterized  our  commander 
made  us  test  the  correctness  of  his  advice.  We  push- 
ed on,  tracked  the  horseshoe  circuit  of  the  ice  without 
finding  an  outlet,  and  were  glad  to  labor  back  again 
almost  in  the  teeth  of  a  gale. 

Captain  Penny  had  occupied  the  time  more  profita- 
bly. In  company  with  Dr.  Goodsir,  an  enthusiastic 
explorer  and  highly  educated  gentleman,  whose  broth- 
er was  an  assistant  surgeon  on  board  the  missing  ves- 
sels, he  had  been  examining  the  shore.  On  the  ridge 
of  limestone,  between  Cape  Spencer  and  Point  Junes, 
they  had  come  across  additional  proofs  that  Sir  John's 
party  had  been  here — very  important  these  proofs  as 


FRANKLIN   S    ENCAMPMENT. 


159 


extending  the  line  along  the  shore  over  which  the  par- 
ty must  have  moved  from  Cape  Riley. 

Among  the  articles  they  had  found  were  tin  canis- 
ters, with  the  London  maker's  label ;  scraps  of  news- 
paper, bearing  the  date  1844 ;  a  paper  fragment,  with 
the  words  "  until  called"  on  it,  seemingly  part  of  a 
watch  order ;  and  two  other  fragments,  each  with  the 
name  of  one  of  Franklin's  officers  written  on  it  in  pen- 
cil. I  annex  a  fac-simile  of  one  of  these,  the  assistant 
surgeon  of  the  Terror.  They  told  us,  too,  that  among 
the  articles  found  by  Captain  Penny's  men  was  a 
dredge,  rudely  fashioned  of  iron  hoops  beat  round, 
with  spikes  inserted  in  them,  and  arranged  for  a  long 
handle,  as  if  to  fish  up  missing  articles ;  besides  some 
footless  stockings,  tied  up  at  the  lower  end  to  serve  as 
socks,  an  officer's  pocket,  velvet-lined,  torn  off  from  the 
dress,  &c.,  &c. ;  all  of  which,  they  thought,  spoke  of  a 
party  that  had  suffered  wreck,  and  were  moving  east- 
ward. Acting  on  this  impression.  Captain  Penny  was 
about  to  proceed  toward  Baffin's  Bay,  along  the  north 
shore  of  Lancaster  Sound,  in  the  hope  of  encountering 
them,  or,  more  probably,  their  bleached  remains. 

For  myself,  looking  only  at  tho  facts,  and  carefully 
discarding  every  deduction  that  might  be  prompted  by 
sympathy  rather  than  reason,  my  journal  reminds  me 
that  I  did  not  see  in  these  signs  the  evidence  of  a  lost 
party.  The  party  was  evidently  in  motion ;  but  it 
might  be  that  it  was  a  detachment,  engaged  in  making 
observations,  or  in  exploring  with  a  view  to  the  oper- 
ations of  the  spring,  while  the  ships  were  locked  in 
winter  quarters  at  Cape  Riley  or  Beechy,  which  had 
returned  on  board  before  the  opening  of  the  ice. 

I  may  add,  as  not  without  some  bearing  on  the  for- 
tunes of  this  party,  whatever  may  have  been  its  condi- 


I     I 


160 


FRANKLIN   S    ENCAMPMENT. 


tion  or  purposes,  that  the  vacant  water-spaces  around 
us  at  this  time  were  teeming  with  animal  life.  After 
passing  Beechy,  we  saw  seal  disporting  in  great  flocks, 
rising  out  of  the  water  as  high  as  their  middle,  like 
boys  in  swimming;  the  white  whale,  the  first  we 
had  seen,  to  the  extent  of  thirty-eight  separate  shoals ; 
the  narwhal,  or  sea-unicorn ;  and,  finally,  that  marine 
pachyderm,  the  tusky  walrus.  These  last  were  always 
crowded  on  small  tongues  of  ice,  whose  purity  they 
marred  not  a  little — grim-looking  monsters,  reminding 
me  of  the  stage  hobgoblins,  something  venerable  and 
semi-Egyptian  withal.  We  passed  so  close  as  to  have 
several  shots  at  them.  They  invariably  rose  after 
plunging,  and  looked  snortingly  around,  as  if  to  make 
fight.  Polar  bears  were  numerous  beyond  our  previous 
experience,  and  the  Arctic  fox  and  hare  abounded.  If 
we  add  to  these  the  crowding  tenants  of  the  air,  the 
Brent  goose,  which  now  came  in  great  cunoid  flocks 
from  the  north  and  north  by  east,  the  loons,  the  mol- 
lemokes,  and  the  divers,  we  may  form  an  estimate  of 
the  means  of  human  subsistence  in  these  seas. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


On  the  27th,  the  chances  of  this  narrow  and  capri- 
cious navigation  had  gathered  five  of  the  searching 
vessels,  under  three  different  commands,  within  the 
same  quarter  of  a  mile — Sir  John  Ross',  Penny's,  and 
our  own.  Both  Ross  and  Penny  had  made  the  effort 
to  push  through  the  sound  to  the  west,  but  found  a 
great  belt  of  ice,  reaching  in  an  almost  regular  cres- 
cent from  Leopold's  Island  across  to  the  northern  shore, 
about  half  a  mile  from  the  entrance  of  the  channel. 
Captain  Ommanney,  with  the  Intrepid  and  Assistance, 
had  been  less  fortunate.  He  had  attempted  to  break 
his  way  through  the  barrier,  but  it  had  closed  on  him, 
and  he  was  now  fast,  within  fifteen  miles  of  us,  to  the 
west. 

After  breakfast,  our  commander  and  myself  took  a 
boat  to  visit  the  traces  discovered  yesterday  by  Cap- 
tain Penny.  Taking  the  Lady  Franklin  in  our  way, 
we  met  Sir  John  Ross  and  Commander  Phillips,  and 
a  conference  naturally  took  place  upon  the  best  plans 
for  concerted  operations.  I  was  very  much  struck 
v/ith  the  gallant  disinterestedness  of  spirit  which  was 
shown  by  all  the  officers  in  this  discussion.  Penny, 
an  energetic,  practical  fellow,  sketched  out  at  once  a 
plan  of  action  for  each  vessel  of  the  party.  He  him- 
self would  take  the  western  search ;  Ross  should  run 

L 


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1 1 


162 


THE    GRAVES. 


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II  li 


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over  to  Prince  Regent's  Sound,  communicate  the  news 
to  the  Prince  Albert,  and  so  relieve  that  little  vessel 
from  the  now  unnecessary  perils  of  her  intended  expe- 
dition ;  and  we  were  to  press  through  the  first  open- 
ings in  the  ice  by  Wellington  Channel,  to  the  north 
and  east. 

It  was  wisely  determined  by  brave  old  Sir  John 
that  he  would  leave  the  Mary,  his  tender  of  twelve 
tons,  at  a  little  inlet  near  the  point,  to  serve  as  a  fall- 
back in  case  we  should  lose  our  vessels  or  become 
sealed  up  in  permanent  ice,  and  De  Haven  and  Penny 
engaged  their  respective  shares  of  her  outfit,  in  the 
shape  of  some  barrels  of  beef  and  flour.  Sir  John 
Ross,  I  think,  had  just  left  us  to  go  on  board  his  little 
craft,  and  I  was  still  talking  over  our  projects  with 
Captain  Penny,  when  a  messenger  was  reported,  mak- 
ing all  speed  to  us  over  the  ice. 

The  news  he  brought  was  thrilling.  "  Graves,  Cap- 
tain Penny !  graves !  Franklin's  winter  quarters !" 
"We  v\'ere  instantly  in  motion.  Captain  De  Haven, 
Captain  Penny,  Commander  Phillips,  and  myself,  join- 
ed by  a  party  from  the  Rescue,  hurried  on  over  the  ice, 
and,  scrambling  along  the  loose  and  rugged  slope  that 
extends  from  Beechy  to  the  shore,  came,  after  a  weary 
walk,  to  the  crest  of  the  isthmus.  Here,  amid  the  ster- 
ile uniformity  of  snow  and  slate,  were  the  head -boards 
of  three  graves,  made  after  the  old  orthodox  fashion  of 
gravestones  at  home.  The  mounds  which  adjoined 
them  were  arranged  with  some  pretensions  to  symme- 
try, coped  and  defended  with  limestone  slabs.  They 
occupied  a  line  facing  toward  Cape  Riley,  which  was 
distinctly  visible  across  a  little  cove  at  the  distance  of 
some  four  hundred  yards. 

The  first,  or  that  most  to  the  southward,  is  nearest  to 


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THE    GRAVES. 


163 


the  front  in  the  accompanying  sketch.     Its  inscrip- 
tion, cut  in  hy  a  chisel,  ran  thus : 

"Sacred 

to  the 

memory 

of 

I  W.  Brainb,  R.  M., 

H.  M.  S.  Erebus. 

Died  April  3d,  1846, 

aged  32  years. 

'  Choose  ye  this  day  whom  ye  will  serve.' 

Joshua,  ch.  xxiv.,  16." 

The  second  was : 

"  Sacred  to  the  memory  of 

John  Hartnell,  A.  B.  of  H.  M.  S. 

Erebus, 

aged  23  years. 

'Thus  saith  the  Lord,  consider  your  ways.' 

Haggai»  i,  7." 

The  third  and  last  of  these  memorials  was  not  quite 
so  well  finished  as  the  others.  The  mound  was  not 
of  stone- work,  but  its  general  appearance  was  more 
grave-like,  more  like  the  sleeping-place  of  Christians 
in  happier  lands.     It  was  inscribed : 

"  Sacred 

to 

the  memory 

of 

John  Torrinuton, 

who  departed  this  life 

January  1st,.  A.D.  1846, 

on  board  of 

H.  M.  ship  Terror,  v 

aged  20  years." 

"  Departed  this  life  on  board  the  Terror,  1st  January. 
1846 !"  Franklin's  ships,  then,  had  not  been  wrecked 
when  he  occupied  the  encampment  at  Beechy ! 

Two  large  stones  were  imbedded  in  the  friable  lime- 
stone a  little  to  the  left  of  these  sad  records,  and  near 
them  was  a  piece  of  wood,  more  than  a  foot  in  diam- 


I' 


:     Ii 


II 


1 


164 


MOUNDS. 


eter,  and  two  feet  eight  inches  high,  which  had  evi- 
dently served  for  an  anvil-block :  the  marks  were  un- 
mistakable. Near  it  again,  but  still  more  to  the  east, 
and  therefore  nearer  the  beach,  was  a  large  blackened 
space,  covered  with  coal  cinders,  iron  nails,  spikes, 
hinges,  rings,  clearly  the  remains  of  the  armorer's  forge. 
Still  nearer  the  beach,  but  more  to  the  south,  was  the 
carpenter's  shop,  its  marks  equally  distinctive. 

Leaving  "the  graves,"  and  walking  toward  Wel- 
lington Straits,  about  four  hundred  yards,  or  perhaps 
less,  we  came  to  a  mound,  or  rather  a  series  of  mounds, 
which,  considering  the  Arctic  character  of  the  surface 
at  this  spot,  must  have  been  a  work  of  labor.  It  in- 
closed one  nearly  elliptical  area,  and  one  other,  which, 
though  separated  from  the  first  by  a  lesser  mound, 
appeared  to  be  connected  with  it.  The  spaces  thus 
inclosed  abounded  in  fragmentary  remains.  Among 
them  I  saw  a  stocking  without  a  foot,  sewed  up  at  its 
edge,  and  a  mitten  not  so  much  the  worse  for  use  as 
to  have  been  without  value  to  its  owner.  Shavings 
of  wood  were  strewed  freely  on  the  southern  side  of 
the  mound,  as  if  they  had  been  collected  there  by  the 
continued  labor  of  artificers,  and  not  far  from  these,  a 
few  hundred  yards  lower  down,  was  the  remnant  of  a 
garden.  Weighing  all  the  signs  carefully,  I  had  no 
doubt  that  this  was  some  central  shore  establishment, 
connected  with  the  squadron,  and  that  the  lesser  area 
was  used  as  an  observatory,  for  it  had  large  stones 
fixed  as  if  to  support  instruments,  and  the  scantling 
props  still  stuck  in  the  frozen  soil. 

Travelling  on  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  further,  and 
in  the  same  direction,  we  came  upon  a  deposit  of  more 
than  six  hundred  preserved-meat  cans,  arranged  in 
regular  order.    They  had  been  emptied,  and  were  now 


TRACES. 


165 


filled  with  limestone  pebbles,  perhaps  to  serve  as  con- 
venient ballast  on  boating  expeditions. 

These  were  among  the  more  obvious  vestiges  of  Sir 
John  Franklin's  party.  The  minor  indications  about 
the  ground  were  innumerable :  fragments  of  canvas, 
rope,  cordage,  sail-cloth,  tarpaulins ;  of  casks,  iron-work, 
wood,  rough  and  carved ;  of  clothing,  such  as  a  blank- 
et lined  by  long  stitches  with  common  cotton  stuff, 
and  made  into  a  sort  of  rude  coat ;  paper  in  scraps, 
white,  waste,  and  journal ;  a  small  key :  a  few  odds 
and  ends  of  brass- work,  such  as  might  be  part  of  the 
furniture  of  a  locker ;  in  a  word,  the  numberless  re- 
liquisB  of  a  winter  resting-place.  One  of  the  papers, 
which  I  have  preserved,  has  on  it  the  notation  of  an 
astronomical  sight,  worked  out  to  Greenwich  time. 

With  all  this,  not  a  written  memorandum,  or  point- 
ing  cross,  or  even  the  vaguest  intimation  of  the  condi- 
tion or  intentions  of  the  party.  The  traces  found  at 
Cape  Riley  and  Beechy  were  still  more  baffling.  The 
cairn  was  mounted  on  a  high  and  conspicuous  portion 
of  the  shore,  and  evidently  intended  to  attract  observa- 
tion ;  but,  though  several  parties  examined  it,  digging 
round  it  in  every  direction,  not  a  single  particle  of  in- 
formation could  be  gleaned.  This  is  remarkable ;  and 
for  so  able  and  practiced  an  Arctic  commander  as  Sir 
John  Franklin,  an  incomprehensible  omission. 

In  a  narrow  interval  between  the  bills  which  come 
down  toward  Beechy  Island,  the  searching  parties  of 
the  Rescue  and  Mr.  Murdaugh  of  our  own  vessel  found 
the  tracks  of  a  sledge  clearly  defined,  and  unmistaka- 
ble both  as  to  character  and  direction.  They  pointed 
to  the  eastern  shores  of  Wellington  Sound,  in  the  same 
general  course  with  the  traces  discovered  by  Penny 
between  Cape  Spencer  and  Point  Innes. 


II 


1 1 


II 


166 


CONCLUSIONS. 


Similar  traces  were  seen  toward  Caswell's  Tower 
and  Cape  Riley,  which  gave  additional  proofs  of  sys- 
tematic journey ings.  They  could  be  traced  through 
the  comminuted  limestone  shingle  in  the  direction  of 
Cape  Spencer ;  and  at  intervals  further  on  were  scraps 
of  paper,  lucifer  matches,  and  even  the  cinders  of  the 
temporary  fire.  The  sledge  parties  must  have  been 
regularly  organized,  for  their  course  had  evidently  been 
the  subject  of  a  previous  reconnoissance.  I  observed 
their  runner  tracks  not  only  in  the  limestone  crust, 
but  upon  some  snow  slopes  further  to  the  north.  It 
was  startling  to  see  the  evidences  of  a  travel  nearly 
six  years  old,  preserved  in  intaglio  on  a  material  so 
perishable. 

The  snows  of  the  Arctic  regions,  by  alternations  of 
congelation  and  thaw,  acquire  sometimes  an  ice-like 
durability ;  but  these  traces  had  been  covered  by  the 
after-snows  of  five  winters.  They  pointed,  like  the 
Sastrugi,  or  snow- waves  of  the  Siberian  ,to  the  march- 
es of  the  lost  company. 

Mr.  Griffin,  who  performed  a  jourr.  y  of  research 
along  this  coast  toward  the  north,  foui  I  at  intervals, 
almost  to  Cape  Bowden,  traces  of  a  pa'  <ng  party.  A 
corked  bottle,  quite  empty,  wafc  amon^  hese.  Reach- 
ing a  point  beyond  Cape  Bowden,  h'  discovered  the 
indentation  or  bay  which  now  bears  ?  s  name,  and  on 
whose  opposite  shores  the  coast  was  agtii>in  seen. 

It  is  clear  to  my  own  mind  that  a  systematic  recon- 
noissance was  undertaken  by  Franklin  of  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Wellington,  and  that  it  had  for  its  object 
an  exploration  in  that  direction  as  soon  as  the  ice 
would  permit. 

There  were  some  features  about  this  deserted  home- 
stead inexpressibly  touching.    The  frozen  trough  of  an 


CONCLUSIONS. 


167 


old  water  channel  had  served  as  the  wash-house  stream 
for  the  crews  of  the  lost  squadron.  The  tubs,  such  as 
Jack  makes  by  sawing  in  half  the  beef  barrels,  al- 
though no  longer  fed  by  the  melted  snows,  remained 
as  the  washers  had  left  them  five  years  ago.  The  lit- 
tle garden,  too :  I  did  not  see  it ;  but  Lieutenant  Osborn 
describes  it  as  still  showing  the  mosses  and  anemones 
that  were  transplanted  by  its  framers.  A  garden  im- 
plies a  purpose  either  to  remain  or  to  return :  he  who 
makes  it  is  looking  to  the  future.  The  same  officer 
found  a  pair  of  Cashmere  gloves,  carefully  "  laid  out  to 
dry,  with  two  small  stones  upon  the  palms  to  keep 
them  from  blowing  away."  It  would  be  wrong  to 
measure  the  value  of  these  gloves  by  the  price  they 
could  be  bought  for  in  Bond  Street  or  Broadway.  The 
Arctic  traveler  they  belonged  to  intended  to  come  back 
for  them,  and  did  not  probably  forget  them  in  his 
hurry. 

The  facts  I  have  mentioned,  almost  all  of  them,  have 
been  so  ably  analyzed  already,  that  I  might  be  ex- 
cused from  venturing  any  deductions  of  my  own.  But 
it  was  impossible  to  review  the  circumstances  as  we 
stood  upon  the  ground  without  forming  an  opinion ; 
and  such  as  mine  was,  it  is  perhaps  best  that  I  should 
express  it  here. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  plain  that  Sir  John  Franklin's 
consort,  the  Terror,  wintered  in  1845-6  at  or  near  the 
promontory  of  Beechy ;  that  at  least  part  of  her  crew 
remained  on  board  of  her;  and  that  some  of  the  crew 
of  the  flag-ship,  the  Erebus,  if  not  the  ship  herself,  were 
also  there.  It  is  also  plain  that  a  part  of  one  or  both 
these  crews  were  occupied  during  a  portion  of  the  win- 
ter in  the  various  pursuits  of  an  organized  squadron, 
at  an  encampment  on  the  isthmus  I  have  described. 


'I  ;  I 


;    ii 


ii 


168 


CONJECTURE. 


a  position  which  commanded  a  full  view  of  Lancaster 
Sound  to  the  east  of  south,  and  of  Wellington  Chan- 
nel extending  north.  It  may  be  fairly  inferred,  also, 
that  the  general  health  of  the  crews  had  not  suffered 
severely,  three  only  having  died  out  of  a  hundred  and 
thirty  odd ;  and  that  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  details 
of  duty,  they  were  occupied  in  conducting  and  comput- 
ing astronomical  observations,  making  sledges,  prepar- 
ing their  little  anti-scorbutic  garden  patches,  and  ex- 
ploring the  eastern  shore  of  the  channel.  Many  facts 
that  we  ourselves  observed  nuide  it  seem  probable  that 
Franklin  had  not,  in  the  first  instance,  been  able  to 
prosecute  his  instructions  for  the  Western  search  ;  and 
the  examinations  made  so  fully  since  by  Captain  Aus- 
tin's officers  have  proved  that  he  never  reached  Cape 
AValker,  Banks'  Land,  Melville  Island,  Prince  Regent's 
Inlet,  or  any  point  of  the  sound  considerably  to  the 
west  or  southwest.  The  whole  story  of  our  combined 
operations  in  and  about  the  channel  shows  that  it  is 
along  its  eastern  margin  that  the  water-leads  occur 
most  frequently :  natural  causes  of  general  application 
may  be  assigned  for  this,  some  of  which  will  readily 
suggest  themselves  to  the  physicist ;  but  I  have  only 
to  do  here  with  the  recognized  fact. 

80  far  I  think  we  proceed  safely.  The  rest  is  con- 
jectural. Let  us  suppose  the  season  for  renewed  prog- 
ress to  be  approaching ;  Franklin  and  his  crews,  with 
their  vessels,  one  or  both,  looking  out  anxiously  from 
their  narrow  isthmus  for  the  first  openings  of  the  ice. 
They  come :  a  gale  of  wind  has  severed  the  pack,  and 
the  drill  begins.  The  first  clear  water  that  would  meet 
his  eye  would  be  close  to  the  shore  on  which  he  had 
his  encampment.  Would  he  wait  till  the  continued 
drift  had  made  the  navigation  practicable  in  Lancas- 


III 


CONJECTURE. 


1()9 


111 

e. 
Id 

d 


ter  Sound,  and  then  retrace  his  steps  to  try  the  upper 
regions  of  Baffin's  Bay,  which  he  could  not  reach  with- 
out a  long  circuit;  or  would  he  press  to  the  north 
through  the  open  lead  that  lay  before  him  t  Those 
who  know  Franklin's  character,  his  declared  opinions, 
his  determined  purpose,  so  well  portrayed  in  the  late- 
ly published  letters  of  one  of  his  officers,  will  hardly 
think  the  question  difficult  to  answer :  his  sledges  had 
already  pioneered  the  way.  We,  the  searchers,  were 
ourselves  tempted,  by  the  insidious  openings  to  the 
north  in  Wellington  Channel,  to  push  on  in  the  hope 
that  some  lucky  chance  might  point  us  to  an  outlet 
beyond.  Might  not  the  same  temptation  have  had  its 
influence  for  Sir  John  Franklin  ?  A  careful  and  dar- 
ing navigator,  such  as  he  was,  would  not  wait  for  the 
lead  to  close.  I  can  imagine  the  dispatch  with  which 
the  observatory  would  be  dismantled,  the  armorer's  es- 
tablishment broken  up,  and  the  camp  vacated.  I  can 
understand  how  the  preserved  meat  cans,  not  very  val- 
uable, yet  not  worthless,  might  be  left  piled  upon  the 
shore ;  how  one  man  might  leave  his  mittens,  another 
his  blanket  coat,  and  a  third  hurry  over  the  search  for 
his  lost  key.  And  if  1  were  required  to  conjecture 
some  explanation  of  the  empty  signal  cairn,  I  do  not 
know  what  I  could  refer  it  to  but  the  excitement  at- 
tendant on  just  such  a  sudden  and  unexpected  release 
from  a  weary  imprisonment,  and  the  instant  prospect 
of  energetic  and  perilous  adventure. 


'vt        . 


pi     i 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

"August  28.  Strange  enough,  during  the  night, 
Captain  Austin,  of  her  majesty's  search  squadron,  with 
his  ilag-ship  the  Resolute,  entered  the  same  little  in- 
dentation in  which  five  of  us  were  moored  hefore.  His 
steam-tender,  the  Pioneer,  grounded  off  the  point  of 
Beechy  Island,  and  is  now  in  sight,  canted  over  by  the 
ice  nearly  to  her  beam  ends.  He  has  come  to  us  not 
of  design,  but  under  the  irresistible  guidance  of  the 
ice.  We  are  now  seven  vessels  within  hailing  dis- 
tance, not  counting  Captain  Ommanney's,  imbedded 
in  the  field  to  the  westward. 

"  I  called  this  morning  on  Sir  John  Ross,  and  had  a 
long  talk  with  him.  He  said  that,  as  far  back  as  1847, 
anticipating  the  '  detention'  of  Sir  John  Franklin — I 
use  his  own  word — he  had  volunteered  his  services  for 
an  expedition  of  retrieve,  asking  for  the  purpose  four 
small  vessels,  something  like  our  own ;  but  no  one  list- 
ened to  him.  Volunteering  again  in  1848,  he  was 
told  that  his  nephew's  claim  to  the  service  had  re- 
ceived a  recognition ;  whereupon  his  own  was  with- 
drawn.  '  I  told  Sir  John,'  said  Ross, '  that  my  own  ex- 
perience in  these  seas  proved  that  all  these  sounds  and 
inlets  may,  by  the  caprice  or  even  the  routine  of  sea- 
sons,  b((  closed  so  as  to  prevent  any  egress,  and  that  a 
missi'ij;  or  shut-off  party  must  have  some  means  of 
falling  ^ack.  It  was  thus  I  saved  myself  from  the 
abandoned  Victory  by  a  previously  constructed  house 
for  wintering,  and  a  boat  for  temporary  refuge.'  All 
this,  he  says,  he  pressed  on  Sir  John  Franklin  before 


VISIT    TO    THE    RESOLUTE. 


171 


he  set  out,  and  he  thinks  that  Melville  Island  is  now 
the  seat  of  such  a  house-asylum.  '  For,  depend  upon 
it,'  he  added,  *  Franklin  will  he  expecting  some  of  us 
to  be  following  on  his  traces.  Now,  may  it  be  that 
the  party,  whose  winter  quarters  we  have  discovered, 
sent  out  only  exploring  detachments  along  Wellington 
Sound  in  the  spring,  and  then,  when  themselves  re- 
leased, continued  on  to  the  west,  by  Cape  Hotham  and 
Barrow's  Straits  V  I  have  given  this  extract  from  my 
journal,  though  the  theory  it  suggests  has  since  been 
disproved  by  Lieutenant  M'Clintock,  because  the  tone 
and  language  of  Sir  John  Ross  may  be  regarded  as 
characteristic  of  this  manly  old  seaman. 

"  I  next  visited  the  Resolute.  I  shall  not  here  say 
how  their  perfect  organization  and  provision  for  win- 
ter contrasted  with  those  of  our  own  little  expedition. 
I  had  to  shake  off  a  feeling  almost  of  despondency 
when  I  saw  how  much  better  fitted  they  were  to  grap- 
ple with  the  grim  enemy,  Cold.  Winter,  if  we  may 
judge  of  it  by  the  clothing  and  warming  appliances  of 
the  British  squadron,  must  be  something  beyond  our 
power  to  cope  with ;  for,  in  comparison  with  them,  we 
have  nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  , 

"  The  officers  received  me,  for  I  was  alone,  with  the 
cordiality  of  recognized  brotherhood.  They  are  a  gen- 
tlemanly, well-educated  set  of  men,  thoroughly  up  to 
the  history  of  what  has  been  done  by  others,  and  full 
of  personal  resource.  Among  them  I  was  rejoiced  to 
meet  an  old  acquaintance,  Lieutenant  Brown,  whose 
admirably  artistic  sketches  I  had  seen  in  Haghe's  lith- 
otints,  at  Mr.  Grinnell's,  before  leaving  New  York. 
When  we  were  together  last,  it  was  among  the  trop- 
ical jungles  of  Luzon,  surrounded  by  the  palm,  the 
cycas,  and  bamboo,  in  the  glowing  extreme  of  vegeta- 


ill 


i'   :l 


172 


VISIT    TO    PENNY. 


ble  exuberance :  here  we  are  met  once  more,  in  the 
stinted  region  of  lichen  and  mosses.  He  was  then  a 
junior,  under  Sir  Edward  Belcher :  I — what  I  am  yet. 
The  lights  and  shadows  of  a  naval  life  are  nowhere 
better,  and,  alas !  nowhere  worse  displayed,  than  in 
these  remote  accidental  greetings. 

"  Returning,  I  paid  a  visit  to  Penny's  vessels,  and 
formed  a  very  agreeable  acquaintance  with  the  med- 
ical officer.  Dr.  R.  Anstruther  Goodsir,  a  brother  of  as- 
sistant surgeon  Goodsir  of  Franklin's  flag-ship. 

"  In  commemoration  of  the  gathering  of  the  search- 
ing squadrons  within  the  little  cove  of  Beechy  Point, 
Commodore  Austin  has  named  it,  very  appropriately. 
Union  Bay.  It  is  here  the  Mary  is  deposited  as  an 
asylum  to  fall  back  upon  in  case  of  disaster. 

"  The  sun  is  traveling  rapidly  to  the  south,  so  that 
our  recently  glaring  midnight  is  now  a  twilight  gloom. 
The  coloring  over  the  hills  at  Point  Innes  this  even- 
ing was  sombre,  but  in  deep  reds ;  and  the  sky  had  an 
inhospitable  coldness.  It  made  me  thoughtful  to  see 
the  long  shadows  stretching  out  upon  the  snow  toward 
the  isthmus  of  the  Graves. 

"  The  wind  is  from  the  north  and  westward,  and  the 
ice  is  so  driven  in  around  us  as  to  grate  and  groan 
against  the  sides  of  our  little  vessel.  The  masses, 
though  small,  are  very  thick,  and  by  the  surging  of 
the  sea  have  been  rubbed  as  round  as  pebbles.  They 
make  an  abominable  noise." 

The  remaining  days  of  August  were  not  character- 
ized by  any  incident  of  note.  We  had  the  same  al- 
ternations of  progress  and  retreat  through  the  ice  as 
before,  and  without  sensibly  advancing  toward  the 
western  shore,  which  it  was  now  our  object  to  reach. 
The  next  extracts  from  my  journal  are  of  the  date  of 
September  3. 


ICE    DRIFTING. 


173 


h. 


"  After  floating  down,  warping,  to  avoid  the  loose 
ice,  we  Anally  cast  off  in  comparatively  open  water, 
and  began  beating  toward  Cape  Spencer  to  get  round 
the  field.  Once  chere,  we  got  along  finely,  sinking  the 
eastern  shore  by  degrees,  and  nearing  the  undelineated 
coasts  of  Cornwallis  Island.  White  whales,  narwhals, 
seals — among  them  the  Phoca  leonina  with  his  puffed 
cheeks — and  two  bears,  were  seen. 

"  The  ice  is  tremendous,  far  ahead  of  any  thing  we 
have  met  with.  The  thickness  of  the  upraised  tables 
is  sometimes  fourteen  feet ;  and  the  hummocks  are  so 
ground  and  distorted  by  the  rude  attrition  of  the  floes, 
that  they  rise  up  in  cones  like  crushed  sugar,  some  of 
them  forty  feet  high.  But  that  the  queer  life  we  are 
leading — a  life  of  constant  exposure  and  excitement, 
and  one  that  seems  more  like  the  *  roughing  it'  of  a 
I«,ud  party  than  the  life  of  shipboard — has  inured  us 
to  the  eccentric  fancies  of  the  ice,  our  position  would 
be  a  sleepless  one. 

^^  September  4,  2  A.M.  Was  awakened  by  Captain 
De  Haven  to  look  at  the  ice :  an  impressive  sight.  We 
were  fast  with  three  anchors  to  the  main  floe ;  and 
now,  though  the  wind  was  still  from  the  northward, 
and  therefore  in  opposition  to  the  drift,  the  floating 
masses  under  the  action  of  the  tide  came  with  a  west- 
ward trend  directly  past  us.  Fortunately,  they  were 
not  borne  down  upon  the  vessels ;  but,  as  they  went 
by  in  slow  procession  to  the  west,  our  sensations  were, 
to  say  the  least,  sensations.  It  was  very  grand  to  see 
up-piled  blocks  twenty  feet  and  more  above  our  heads, 
and  to  wonder  whether  this  fellow  would  strike  om 
main-yard  or  clear  our  stern.  Some  of  the  moving 
hummocks  were  thirty  feet  high.  They  grazed  us ; 
but  a  little  projection  of  the  main  field  to  windward 
shied  them  off. 


174 


MY    FIRST    BEAR. 


': 


"  I  killed  to-day  my  first  polar  bear.  "We  made  the 
animal  on  a  large  floe  to  the  northward  while  we  were 
sighting  the  western  shores  of  Wellington,  and  of 
course  could  not  stop  to  shoot  bears.  But  he  took  to 
the  water  ahead  of  us,  and  came  so  near  that  we  fired 
at  him  from  the  bows  of  the  vessel.  Mr.  Lovell  and 
myself  fired  so  simultaneously,  that  we  had  to  weigh 
the  ball  to  determine  which  had  hit.  My  bullet  struck 
exactly  in  the  ear,  the  mark  I  had  aimed  at,  for  he  had 
only  his  head  above  water.  The  young  ice  was  form- 
ing so  rapidly  around  us  that  it  was  hard  work  get- 
ting him  on  board.  I  was  one  of  the  oarsmen,  and 
sweated  rarely,  with  the  thermometer  at  25°. 

"  On  the  way  back  I  succeeded  in  hitting  an  enor- 
mous seal ;  but,  much  to  my  mortification,  he  sunk, 
after  floating  till  we  nearly  reached  him. 

"Without  any  organization,  and  with  very  little 
time  for  the  hunt,  the  Advance  now  counts  upon  her 
game  list  two  polar  bears,  three  seals,  a  single  goose, 
and  a  fair  table  allowance  of  loons,  divers,  and  snipes. 
The  Rescue  boasts  of  four  bears,  and,  in  addition  to 
the  small  game,  a  couple  of  Arctic  hares.  Our  solita- 
ry goose  was  the  Anas  bernicla,  crowds  of  which  now 
begin  to  fly  over  the  land  and  ice  in  cunoid  streams 
to  the  east  of  south.  It  was  killed  by  Mr.  Murdaugh 
with  a  rifle,  on  the  wing. 

"  How  very  much  I  miss  my  good  home  assortment 
of  hunting  materials !  We  have  not  a  decent  gun  on 
board ;  as  for  the  rifle  I  am  now  shooting,  it  is  a  flint- 
lock  concern,  and  half  the  time  hangs  fire." 

The  next  morning  found  me  at  work  skinning  my 
bear,  not  a  pleasant  task  with  the  thermometer  below 
the  freezing  point.  He  was  a  noble  specimen,  larger 
than  the  largest  recorded  by  Parry,  measuring  eight 


,1 


MY    BEAR. 


175 


feet  eight  inches  and  three  quarters  from  tip  to  tip.  I 
presented  the  skin,  on  my  return  home,  to  the  Acad- 
emy of  Natural  Sciences  at  Philadelphia. 

The  carcass  was  larger  than  that  of  an  ordinary  ox 
fatted  for  market.  We  estimated  his  weight  at  near- 
ly sixteen  hundred  pounds.  In  build  he  was  very  sol- 
id, and  the  muscles  of  the  arms  and  haunch  fearfully 
developed.  I  once  before  compared  the  posterior  as- 
pect of  the  Arctic  bear  to  an  elephant's.  All  my  mess- 
mates  used  the  same  comparison.  The  extreme  round- 
ness of  his  back  and  haunches,  with  the  columnar  char- 
acter of  the  legs,  and  the  round  expansion  of  the  feet, 
give  you  the  impression  of  a  small  elephant.  The 
plantigrade  base  of  support  overlapped  by  long  hair 
heightens  the  resemblance.  The  head  and  neck,  of 
course,  are  excluded  from  the  comparison. 

At  five  in  the  afternoon  we  succeeded  in  reaching 
within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  shore  off  Barlow's  In- 
let, and  made  fast  there  to  the  floe.  This  inlet  is  but 
a  few  miles  from  Cape  Hotham,  and  is  marked  on  the 
charts  as  a  mere  interruption  of  the  coast  line.  Parry, 
who  named  it,  must  have  had  wonderfully  favoring 
weather  to  sight  so  accurately  an  insignificant  cov§. 
He  was  a  practiced  hydrographer. 

The  limestone  clifls  rise  on  each  side,  forming  stu- 
pendous piers  gnarled  by  frost  degradation,  between 
which  is  the  entrance,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide. 
The  moment  our  little  vessel  entered  the  shadow  of 
these  cliffs,  a  quiet  gloom  took  the  place  of  bustling 
movement.  "We  ground  our  way  into  the  newly-form- 
ed ice,  and,  after  making  a  couple  of  ships'  lengths, 
found  ourselves  within  a  sort  of  cape  of  land  floe,  sur- 
rounded by  high  hummocks  and  anchored  bergs.  It 
was  a  melancholy  spot ;  not  one  warm  sun  tint ;  ev- 
ery thing  blank,  repulsive  sterility. 


EXPLORING. 


*^  September  6.  The  captain,  Mr.Murdaugh,  Mr.  Car- 
ter, and  myself  started  on  a  walk  of  exploration.  The 
distance  between  the  brig  and  the  shore  is  not  over 
three  hundred  yards,  but  the  travel  was  arduous.  The 
ice  was  eight  and  ten  feet  thick,  studded  with  broken 
bergs  and  hummocks.  These  fragments  were  seldom 
larger  than  our  Rensselaer  dining-room,  some  twenty 
feet  square,  and,  owing  either  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
tides  or  the  piling  action  of  storms,  deep  crevices  were 
formed  around  their  edges,  partially  masked  by  the 
snow  which  had  found  its  way  into  them,  and  by  an 
icy  crust  over  the  surface.  Alternately  jumping  these 
crevices  and  clambering  up  the  hummocks  between 
them  made  it  a  dangerous  walk.  We  had  some  nar- 
row escapes.  Reaching  the  shore,  we  pushed  forward 
about  a  mile  and  a  quarter  to  the  head  of  the  inlet, 
and  then  crossed  over  on  the  ice  to  a  cairn  that  stood 
near  it.  We  found  nothing  but  a  communication  from 
Captain  Ommanney,  whose  vessels  we  saw  as  we  en- 
tered the  lead  yesterday,  informing  the  Secretary  of 
the  Admiralty  that  he  had  been  off  this  place  since  the 
24th,  and  that  *  no  traces  are  to  be  found  on  Cornwal- 
lis  Island  of  the  party  under  Sir  John  Franklin' — a 
somewhat  too  confident  assertion  perhaps,  seeing  that 
the  island,  if  it  be  one,  is  more  than  fifty  miles  across, 
and  that  the  observations  can  hardly  have  extended 
beyond  the  coast  line. 

"September  7.  The  spot  at  which  we  have  been  ly- 
ing is  in  front  of  Barlow's  Inlet.  There  is  no  barrier 
between  it  and  our  vessels  but  the  young  ice,  which 
has  now  attained  a  thickness  of  three  inches.  On  the 
east  we  have  the  drift  plain  of  Wellington  Channel, 
impacted  with  fioes,  hummocks,  and  broken  bergs ;  and 
to  the  south  we  look  out  upon  a  wild  aggregation  of 


HUMMMOCKS BREAK    UP. 


177 


ly. 
ier 
ich 
;he 


of 


enormous  hummocks.  There  hummocks  are  totally 
unlike  any  thing  we  saw  in  Baffin's  Bay.  They  seem 
to  have  heen  so  disintegrated  by  the  conflicting  forces 
that  raised  them  as  to  have  lost  altogether  the  char- 
acter of  tables.  If  hogshead  upon  hogshead  of  crush- 
ed sugar  had  been  emptied  out  at  random,  two  or  three 
in  one  pile,  and  two  or  three  ship  loads  in  another,  and 
the  summits  of  these  irregular  heaps  were  covered  over 
with  a  succession  of  layers  of  snow,  and  the  heaps 
themselves  multiplied  in  number  indefinitely,  and 
crowded  together  in  a  disordered  phalanx,  they  would 
look  a  good  deal  like  the  hummock  field  some  twen- 
ty yards  south  of  us.  These  fearful  masses  axe  all  an- 
chored, solid  hills,  rising  thirty  feet  above  the  level 
from  a  bottom  twenty-two  feet  below  it. 

"  Our  situation  might  be  regarded  as  an  ugly  one  in 
some  states  of  the  wind,  but  for  the  solid  main  floe  to 
the  north  of  us.  This  projected  from  the  cliff",  which 
served  as  an  abutment  for  it ;  and,  after  forming  a  sort 
of  cape  outside  of  our  position,  extended  with  a  horse- 
shoe sweep  to  the  northward  and  eastward,  as  far  as 
the  eye  could  reach,  following  the  trend  of  the  shore. 
It  formed,  of  course,  a  reliable  breakwater.  Commo- 
dore Austin's  vessels  were  made  fast  to  it  some  dis- 
tance to  the  north  and  east  of  us. 

"  The  barometer  had  given  us,  in  the  early  morning 
of  the  4th,  29*90,  since  when  it  rose  steadily  till  the 
5th,  at  6  A.M.,  when  it  stood  at  30*38.  For  the  next 
twenty-four  hours  it  fluctuated  between  '22  and  *37 ; 
but  at  6  A.M.  of  the  6th,  it  again  began  to  rise ;  by 
midnight,  it  had  reached  30*44 ;  and  before  ten  o'clock 
P.M.  of  the  7th,  it  was  at  the  unwonted  height  of 
30*68.  At  2  P.M.  the  wind  had  changed  from  S.S.E. 
to  N.N.E.,  and  went  on  increasing  to  a  gale. 

M 


«l 


I 


•    :] 


i  i 


II 


178 


ICE    FORMING. 


"We  were  seated  cosily  around  our  little  table  in 
the  cabin,  imagining  our  harbor  of  land  ice  perfectly 
secure,  when  we  were  startled  by  a  crash.  We  rush- 
ed on  deck  just  in  time  to  see  the  solid  floe  to  wind- 
ward part  in  the  middle,  liberate  itself  from  its  attach- 
ment to  the  shore,  and  bear  down  upon  us  with  the 
full  energy  of  the  storm.  Our  lee  bristled  ominously 
half  a  ship's  length  from  us,  and  to  the  east  was  the 
main  drift.  The  Rescue  was  first  caught,  nipped 
astern,  and  lifted  bodily  out  of  water;  fortunately,  she 
withstood  the  pressure,  and  rising  till  she  snapped  her 
cable,  launched  into  open  water,  crushing  the  young 
ice  before  her.  The  Advance,  by  hard  warping,  drew 
a  little  closer  to  the  cove ;  and,  a  moment  after,  the  ice 
drove  by,  j  ust  clearing  our  stern.  Commodore  Austin's 
vessels  were  imprisoned  in  the  moving  fragments,  and 
carried  helplessly  past  us.  In  a  very  little  while  they 
were  some  four  miles  off." 

The  summer  was  now  leaving  us  rapidly.  The 
thermometer  had  been  at  21°  and  23°  for  several  nights, 
and  scarcely  rose  above  32°  in  the  daytime.  Our  lit- 
tle harbor  at  Barlow's  Inlet  was  completely  blocked 
in  by  heavy  masses ;  the  new  ice  gave  plenty  of  sport 
to  the  skaters ;  but  on  shipboard  it  was  uncomfortably 
cold.  As  yet  we  had  no  fires  below;  and,  after  draw- 
ing around  me  the  India-rubber  curtains  of  my  berth, 
with  my  lamp  burning  inside,  I  frequently  wrote  my 
journal  in  a  freezing  temperature.  "This  is  not  very 
cold,  no  doubt" — I  quote  from  an  entry  of  the  8th — 
"  not  very  cold  to  your  forty-five  minus  men  of  Arctic 
winters ;  but  to  us  poor  devils  from  the  zone  of  the 
liriodendrons  and  peaches,  it  is  rather  cool  for  the 
September  month  of  water-melons.  My  bear  with  his 
arsenic  swabs  is  a  solid  lump,  and  some  birds  that 


RENDEZVOUS. 


179 


are  waiting  to  be  skinned  are  absolutely  rigid  with 
frost." 

In  the  afternoon  of  this  day,  the  8th,  we  went  to 
work,  all  hands,  officers  included,  to  cut  up  the  young 
ice  and  tow  it  out  into  the  current :  once  there,  the  drift 
carried  it  rapidly  to  the  south.  We  cleared  away  in 
this  manner  a  space  of  some  forty  yards  square,  and  at 
five  the  next  morning  were  rewarded  by  being  again 
under  weigh.  We  were  past  Cape  Hotham  by  break- 
fast-time  on  the  9th,  and  in  the  afternoon  were  beat- 
ing to  the  west  in  Lancaster  Sound. 

"  The  sound  presented  a  novel  spectacle  to  us ;  the 
young  ice  glazing  it  over,  so  as  to  form  a  viscid  sea  of 
sludge  and  tickly-benders,  from  the  northern  shore  to 
the  pack,  a  distance  of  at  least  ten  miles.  This  was 
mingled  with  the  drift  floes  from  Wellington  Chan- 
nel ;  and  in  them,  steaming  away  manfully,  were  the 
Resolute  and  Pioneer.  The  wind  was  dead  ahead ; 
yet,  but  for  the  new  ice,  there  was  a  clear  sea  to  the 
west.  What,  then,  was  our  mortification,  first,  to  see 
our  pack-bound  neighbors  force  themselves  from  their 
prison  and  steam  ahead  dead  in  the  wind's  eye,  and, 
next,  to  be  overhauled  by  Penny,  and  passed  by  both 
his  brigs.  We  are  now  the  last  of  all  the  searchers, 
except  perhaps  old  Sir  John,  who  is  probably  yet  in 
Union  Bay,  or  at  least  east  of  the  straits. 

"  The  shores  along  which  we  are  passing  are  of  the 
same  configuration  with  the  coast  to  the  east  of  Beechy 
Island ;  the  clifls,  however,  are  not  so  high,  and  their 
bluff"  appearance  is  relieved  occasionally  by  terraces 
and  shingle  beach.  The  lithological  characters  of  the 
limestone  appear  to  be  the  same. 

"  We  are  all  together  here,  on  a  single  track  but  lit- 
tle wider  than  the  Delaware  or  Hudson.    There  is  no 


'I 

11* 


■i   I  ■' 


180 


RENDEZVOUS. 


getting  out  of  it,  for  the  shore  is  on  one  side  and  the 
fixed  ice  close  on  the  other.  All  have  the  lead  of  us, 
and  we  are  working  only  to  save  a  distance.  Omman- 
ney  must  he  near  Melville  hy  this  time :  pleasant, 
very! 

"  Closing  memoranda  for  the  day :  1.  I  have  the 
rheumatism  in  my  knees ;  2.  I  left  a  hag  containing 
my  dress  suit  of  uniforms,  and,  what  is  worse,  my  win- 
ter suit  of  furs,  and  with  them  my  double-harrel  gun, 
on  hoard  Austin's  vessel.  The  gale  of  the  7th  has 
carried  him  and  them  out  of  sight. 

"  September  10.  Unaccountable,  most  unaccounta- 
hie,  the  caprices  of  this  ice-locked  region !  Here  we 
are  again  all  together,  even  Ommanney  with  the  rest. 
Tlic  Resolute,  Intrepid,  Assistance,  Pioneer,  Lady 
Franklin,  Sophia,  Advance,  and  Rescue ;  Austin,  Om- 
manney, Penny,  and  De  Haven,  all  anchored  to  the 
'  fast'  off  Griffith's  Island.  The  way  to  the  west  com- 
pletely shut  out." 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


The  succeeding  pages  are  very  little  else  than  a  tran- 
script from  my  journal.  It  would  have  been  easy  to 
condense  them  into  a  more  attractive  form ;  but  they 
relate  to  the  furthest  limits  of  our  cruise,  "  longarum 
meta  viarum ;"  and  some  of  the  topics  which  they  em- 
brace may  perhaps  invite  that  sort  of  evidence  which 
is  best  furnished  by  a  contemporary  record. 

* '  September  1 1 ,  Wednesday.  Snow,  light  and  fleecy, 
covering  the  decks,  and  carried  by  our  clothes  into  our 
little  cabin.  The  moisture  of  the  atmosphere  con- 
denses over  the  beams,  and  trickles  down  over  the 
lockers  and  bedding.  We  are  still  along  side  of  the 
fixed  ice  off  Griffith's  Island,  and  the  British  squad- 
ron under  Commodore  Austin  are  clustered  together 
within  three  hundred  yards  of  us.  Penny,  like  an  in- 
defatigable old  trump,  as  he  is,  is  out,  pushing,  work- 
ing, groping  in  the  fog.  The  sludge  ice,  that  had 
driven  in  around  us  and  almost  congealed  under  our 
stern,  is  now  by  the  ebb  of  the  tide,  or  at  least  its 
change,  carried  out  again,  although  the  wind  still  sets 
toward  the  floe. 

"  September  12,  Thursday.  We  have  had  a  rough 
night.  About  4  P.M.,  the  heavy  snow  which  had  cov- 
ered our  decks  changed  to  a  driving  drift ;  the  wind 
blew  a  gale  from  the  northwest,  and  the  thermometer 
fell  as  low  as  +16°.  All  the  squadron  of  search,  with 
the  exception  of  Penny,  were  fastened  by  ice-anchors 
to  the  main  ice ;  but  the  great  obscurity  made  us  in- 
visible to  each  other. 


M 


5 


;i 


y 


!l! 


182 


A  GALE. 


"  At  three  the  Rescue  parted  her  cable's  hold,  and 
was  carried  out  to  sea,  leaving  two  men,  her  boat,  and 
her  anchors  behind.  We  snapped  our  stern-cable,  lost 
our  anchor,  swung  out,  but  fortunately  held  by  the 
forward  line.  All  the  English  vessels  were  in  similar 
peril,  the  Pioneer  being  at  one  time  actually  free ;  and 
Commodore  Austin,  who  in  the  Resolute  occupied  the 
head  of  the  line,  was  in  momentary  fear  of  coming 
down  upon  us.  Altogether  I  have  seldom  seen  a  night 
of  greater  trial.  The  wind  roared  over  the  snow  floes, 
and  every  thing  about  the  vessel  froze  into  heavy  ice 
stalactites.  Had  the  main  floe  parted,  we  had  been 
carried  down  with  the  liberated  ice.  Fortunately,  ev- 
ery thing  held ;  and  here  we  are,  safe  and  sound.  The 
Rescue  was  last  seen  beating  to  windward  against  the 
gale,  probably  seeking  a  lee  under  Griffith's  Island. 
This  morning  the  snow  continues  in  the  form  of  a  fine 
cutting  drift,  the  water  freezes  wherever  it  touches, 
and  the  thermometer  has  been  at  no  time  above  17°. 

"September  12, 10  P.M.  Just  from  deck.  How  very 
dismal  every  thing  seems !  The  snow  is  driven  like 
sand  upon  a  level  reach,  lifted  up  in  long  curve  lines, 
and  then  obscuring  the  atmosphere  with  a  white  dark- 
ness. The  wind,  too,  is  howling  in  a  shrill  minor, 
singing  across  the  hummock  ridges.  The  eight  ves- 
sels are  no  longer  here.  The  Rescue  is  driven  out  to 
sea,  and  poor  Penny  is  probably  to  the  southward. 
Five  black  masses,  however,  their  cordage  defined  by 
rime  and  snow,  are  seen  with  their  snouts  shoved  into 
the  shore  of  ice :  cables,  chains,  and  anchors  are  cov- 
ered feet  below  the  drift,  and  the  ships  adhere  mys- 
teriously, their  tackle  completely  invisible.  Should 
any  of  us  break  away,  the  gale  would  carry  us  into 
streams  of  heavy  floating  ice ;  and  our  running  rig- 


THE    GALE. 


183 


ging  is  so  coated  with  icicles  as  to  make  it  impossible 
to  work  it.    The  thermometer  stands  at  14°. 

"At  this  temperature  the  young  ice  forms  in  spite 
of  the  increasing  movement  of  the  waves,  stretching 
out  from  the  floe  in  long,  zigzag  lines  of  smoothness 
resembling  watered  silk.  The  loose  ice  seems  to  have 
a  southerly  and  easterly  drift ;  and,  from  the  increas- 
ing distance  of  Griffith's  Island,  seen  during  occasional 
intervals,  we  are  evidently  moving  en  masse  to  the 
south. 

"Now  when  you  remember  that  we  are  in  open 
sea,  attached  to  precarious  ice,  and  surrounded  by 
floating  streams  ;  that  the  coast  is  unknown,  and  the 
ice  forming  inshore,  so  as  to  make  harbors,  if  we  knew 
of  them,  inaccessible,  you  may  suppose  that  our  posi- 
tion is  far  from  pleasant.  One  harbor  was  discovered 
by  a  lieutenant  of  the  Assistance  some  days  ago,  and 
named  Assistance  Harbor,  but  that  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion ;  the  wind  is  not  only  a  gale,  but  ahead.  Had 
we  the  quarters  of  Capua  before  us,  we  should  be  un- 
able to  reach  them.    It  is  a  windward  shore. 

"11  P.M.  Captain  De  Haven  reports  ice  forming 
fast:  extra  anchors  are  out;  thermometer  +8".  The 
British  squadron,  under  Austin,  have  fires  in  full  blast  : 
we  are  without  them  still. 

"  12  M.  In  bed,  reading  or  trying  to  read.  The  gale 
has  increased ;  the  floes  are  in  upon  us  from  the  east- 
ward ;  and  it  is  evident  that  we  are  all  of  us  drifting 
bodily,  God  knows  where,  for  we  have  no  means  of 
taking  observations. 

"  September  13,  10  A.M.  Found,  on  awaking,  that 
at  about  three  this  morning  the  squadron  commenced 
getting  under  weigh.  The  rime-coated  rigging  was 
cleared ;  the  hawsers  thashed  ;  the  ics-clogged  boats 


184 


FOR    GRIFFITH   S    ISLAND. 


hauled  in ;  the  steamers  steamed,  and  off  went  the 
rest  of  us  as  we  might.  This  step  was  not  taken  a 
whit  too  soon,  if  it  be  ordained  that  we  are  yet  in 
time ;  for  the  stream-ice  covers  the  entire  horizon,  and 
the  hirge  floe  or  main  which  we  ha  -e  deserted  is  bare- 
ly  separated  from  the  drifting  masses.  The  Rescue  is 
now  the  object  of  our  search.  Could  she  be  found, 
the  captain  has  determined  to  turn  his  steps  home- 
ward. 

"11  20  A.M.  We  are  working,  i.  e.,  beating  our  way 
in  the  narrow  leads  intervening  irregularly  between 
the  main  ice  and  the  drift.  We  have  gained  at  least 
two  miles  to  windward  of  Austin's  squadron,  who  aro 
unable,  in  spite  of  steamers,  to  move  along  these  dan- 
gerous passages  like  ourselves.  Our  object  is  to  reach 
Griffith's  Island,  from  which  we  have  drifted  some  fif- 
teen miles  with  the  main  ice,  and  then  look  out  for 
our  lost  consort. 

"  The  lowest  temperature  last  night  was  +5°,  but 
the  wind  makes  it  colder  to  sensation.  We  are  grind- 
ing through  newly-formed  ice  three  inches  thick ;  the 
perfect  consolidation  being  prevented  by  its  motion  and 
the  wind.  Even  in  the  little  fireless  cabin  in  which 
I  now  write,  water  and  coffee  are  freezing,  and  the 
mercury  stands  at  29°. 

"  The  navigation  is  certainly  exciting.  I  have  nev- 
er seen  a  description  in  my  Arctic  readings  of  any 
thing  like  this.  We  are  literally  running  for  our  lives, 
surrounded  by  the  imminent  he-zards  of  sudden  con- 
solidation in  an  open  sea.  All  minor  perils,  nips, 
bumps,  and  sunken  bergs  are  discarded ;  we  are  stag- 
gering alorg  under  all  sail,  forcing  our  way  while  we 
can.  One  thump,  received  since  I  commenced  writ- 
ing, jerked  the  time-keeper  from  our  binnacle  down 


ORDER    FOR    RETURN. 


185 


the  cabin  hatch,  and,  but  for  our  strong  bows,  seven 
and  a  half  solid  feet,  would  have  stove  us  in.  Anoth- 
er time,  we  cleared  a  tongue  of  the  main  pack  by  rid- 
ing it  down  at  eight  knots.  Commodore  Austin  seems 
caught  by  the  closing  floes.    This  is  really  sharp  work. 

"4  P.M.  We  continued  beating  toward  Griflith's 
Island,  till,  by  doubling  a  tongue  of  ice,  we  were  able 
to  force  our  way.  The  English  seemed  to  watch  our 
movements,  and  almost  to  follow  in  our  wake,  till  we 
came  to  a  comparatively  open  space,  about  the  area  of 
Washington  Square,  where  we  stood  off  and  on,  the 
ice  being  too  close  upon  the  eastern  end  of  Griffith's 
Island  to  permit  us  to  pass.  Our  companions  in  this 
little  vacancy  were  Captain  Ommanney's  Assistance, 
Osborne's  steam  tender  the  Pioneer,  and  Kater's  si-eam- 
er  the  Intrepid.  Commodore  Austin's  vessel  was  to 
the  southward,  entangled  in  the  moving  ice,  but  mo- 
mentarily nearing  the  open  leads. 

"  While  thus  boxing  about  on  one  of  our  tacks,  we 
neared  the  north  edge  of  our  little  opening,  and  were 
hailed  by  the  Assistance  with  the  glad  intelligence  of 
the  Rescue  close  under  the  island.  Our  captain,  who 
was  at  his  usual  post,  conning  the  ship  from  the  fore- 
top-sail  yard,  made  her  out  at  the  same  time,  and  im- 
mediately determined  upon  boring  the  intervening  ice. 
This  was  done  successfully,  the  brig  bearing  the  hard 
knocks  nobly.  Strange  to  say,  the  English  vessels, 
now  joined  by  Austin,  followed  in  our  wake — a  com- 
pliment, certainly,  to  De  Haven's  ice-mastership. 

*'  We  were  no  sooner  through,  than  signal  was  made 
to  the  Rescue  to  *  cast  off,'  and  our  ensign  was  run 
up  from  the  peak :  the  captain  had  determined  upon 
attempting  a  return  to  the  United  States." 

It  could  not  be  my  office  to  discuss  the  policy  of 


■iRl 


186 


THE    RESCUE    NIPPED. 


ffii  tii 


'   ■' 


;,i     '  I' 


this  step,  even  if  the  question  were  one  of  policy  alone. 
But  it  was  one  of  instructions.  The  Navy  Depart- 
ment, imitating  in  this  the  English  Board  of  Admiral- 
ty, had,  in  its  orders  to  our  commander,  marked  out  to 
him  the  course  of  the  expedition,  and  had  enjoined 
that,  unless  under  special  circumstances,  he  should 
"  endeavor  not  to  be  caught  in  the  ice  during  the  win- 
ter, but  that  he  should,  after  completing  his  examina- 
tions for  the  season,  make  his  escape,  and  return  to 
New  York  in  the  fall."  In  the  judgment  of  Commo- 
dore De  Haven,  these  special  circumstances  did  not 
exist ;  and  he  felt  himself,  therefore,  controlled  by  the 
general  terms  of  the  injunction.  I  believe  that  there 
was  but  one  feeling  among  the  officers  of  our  little 
squadron,  that  of  unmitigated  regret  that  we  were  no 
longer  to  co-operate  with  our  gallant  associates  under 
the  sister  flag.  Our  intercourse  with  them  had  been 
most  cordial  from  the  very  first.  We  had  interchanged 
many  courtesies,  and  I  should  be  sorry  to  think  that 
there  had  not  been  formed  on  both  sides  some  endur- 
ing friendships. 

In  a  little  while  we  had  the  Rescue  in  tow,  and 
were  heading  to  the  east.  She  had  had  a  fearful  night 
of  it  after  leaving  us.  She  beat  about,  short-handed, 
clogged  with  ice,  and  with  the  thermometer  at  8°. 
The  snow  fell  heavily,  and  the  rigging  was  a  solid,  al- 
most unmanageable  lump.  Steering,  or  rather  beat- 
ing, she  made,  on  the  evening  of  the  12th,  the  southern 
edge  of  Griffith's  Island,  and  by  good  luck  and  excel- 
lent management  succeeded  in  holding  to  the  land 
hummocks.  She  had  split  her  rudder-post  so  as  to 
make  her  unworkable^  and  now  we  have  her  in  tow. 
An  anchor  with  its  fluke  snapped — her  best  bower ; 
and  her  little  boat,  stove  in  by  the  ice,  was  cut  .adrift. 


! 


ILLUSION. 


187 


We  were  now  homeward  bound,  but  a  saddened 
homeward  bound  for  all  of  us.  The  vessels  of  our 
gallant  brethren  soon  lost  themselves  in  the  mist,  and 
we  steered  our  course  with  a  fresh  breeze  for  Cape 
Hotham. 

"As  we  passed  the  sweep  of  coast  between  Capes 
Martyr  and  Hotham,  and  were  making  the  chord  of 
the  curve,  our  captain  called  my  attention  to  a  point 
of  the  coast  line  about  six  miles  off.  On  looking  with- 
out a  glass,  I  distinctly  saw  the  naked  spars  of  a  couple 
of  vessels.  '  Brigs !'  said  I.  *  Undoubtedly,'  said  De 
Haven ;  and  then  both  of  us  simultaneously,  *  Penny !' 
On  looking  with  the  glass,  the  masts,  yards,  gaffs,  ev- 
ery thing  but  the  bowsprits,  were  made  out  distinctly. 
Lovell  was  called  and  saw  the  same.  Murdaugh, 
who  was  half  undressed,  was  summoned ;  and  he,  ex- 
amining with  the  glass,  saw  a  third,  which  De  Haven, 
after  a  look,  confirmed  as  a  top-sail  schooner,  '  The 
Felix'  of  old  Sir  John. 

"We  changed  our  course,  ran  in,  and  determined  to 
convince  ourselves  of  their  character,  and  perhaps  to 
speak  them.  The  fog,  however,  closed  around  them. 
Still  we  stood  on.  Presently,  a  flaw  of  wind  drove 
off  the  vapor ;  and  upon  eagerly  gazing  at  the  spot, 
now  less  than  three  miles  oflF,  no  vessels  were  to  be 
seen. 

"I  can  hardly  comment  upon  this  strange  circum- 
stance. It  was  a  complete  puzzle  to  all  of  us.  Re- 
fractive distortion  plays  strange  freaks  in  these  Arctic 
solitudes ;  but  this  could  hardly  be  one  of  its  illusions. 
Four  persons  saw  the  same  image  with  the  naked  eye, 
and  the  glass  confirmed  the  details.  There  was  no 
disagreement.  As  plainly  as  I  see  these  letters  did  I 
see  those  brigs ;  and  although  we  supposed  the  Lady 


l^il'  I  III 

r   ,., 

I-:  is 


P' 


i 


i| 


^  i^i 


!  '      ■  III 


I  M|i 


IIP 


1.1 


'I 


188 


ICE    THICKENING. 


Franklin  and  Sophia  to  be  ice-caught  at  or  toward 
Cape  Walker,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  name  them  as  the 
vessels  before  us.  Ten  minutes  of  obscurity,  we  sail- 
ing directly  toward  them,  a  sudden  interval  of  bright- 
ness— and  they  had  passed  away. 

"  Some  large  hummocks  of  grounded  ice  were  near 
them,  and  we  try  to  convince  ourselves  that  they  may 
have  been  closed  in  by  changes  in  our  relative  posi- 
tions ;  but  this  is  hard  to  believe,  for  we  should  have 
seen  their  upper  spars  above  the  ice.  I  gazed  long  and 
attentively  with  our  Fraunhofer  telescope,  at  three 
miles'  distance,  but  saw  absolutely  no  semblance  of 
what  a  few  minutes  before  was  so  apparent." 

We  were  obliged  several  times  the  next  day  to  bore 
through  the  young  ice ;  for  the  low  temperature  con- 
tinued, and  our  wind  lulled  under  Cape  Hotham. 
The  night  gave  us  no^  tr  three  hours  of  complete  dark- 
ness. It  was  danger  to  run  on,  yet  equally  danger  to 
pause.  Grim  winter  was  following  close  upon  our 
heels ;  and  even  the  captain,  sanguine  and  fearless  in 
emergency  as  he  always  proved  himself,  as  he  saw 
the  tenacious  fields  of  sludge  and  pancake  thickening 
around  us,  began  to  feel  anxious.  Mine  was  a  jum- 
ble of  sensations.  I  had  been  desirous  to  the  last  de- 
gree that  we  might  remain  on  the  field  of  search,  and 
could  hardly  be  dissatisfied  at  what  promised  to  real- 
ize my  wish.  Yet  I  had  hoped  that  our  wintering 
would  be  near  our  English  friends,  that  in  case  of 
trouble  or  disease  we  might  mutually  sustain  each 
other.  But  the  interval  of  fifty  miles  between  us,  in 
these  inhospitable  deserts,  was  as  complete  a  separa- 
tion as  an  entire  continent ;  and  I  confess  that  I  look- 
ed at  the  dark  shadows  closing  around  Barlow's  Inlet, 
the  prison  from  which  we  cui  ourselves  on  the  seventh. 


!n 


hi 


III 


PARTIAL    OPENING. 


189 


th, 


just  six  days  before,  with  feelings  as  sombre  as  the 
landscape  itself. 

The  sound  of  our  vessel  crunching  her  way  through 
the  new  ice  is  not  easy  to  be  described.  It  was  not 
like  the  grinding  of  the  old  formed  ice,  nor  was  it  the 
slushy  scraping  of  sludge.  We  may  all  of  us  remem- 
ber, in  the  skating  frolics  of  early  days,  the  peculiar 
reverberating  outcry  of  a  pebble,  as  we  tossed  it  from 
us  along  the  edges  of  an  old  mill-dam,  and  heard  it 
dying  away  in  echoes  almost  musical.  Imagine  such 
a  tone  as  this,  combined  with  the  whir  of  rapid  mo- 
tion, and  the  rasping  noise  of  close-grained  sugar.  I 
was  listening  to  the  sound  in  my  little  den,  after  a 
sorrowful  day,  close  upon  zero,  trying  to  warm  up  my 
stiffened  limbs.  Presently  it  grew  less,  then  increas- 
ed, then  stopped,  then  went  on  again,  but  jerking  and 
irregular ;  and  then  it  waned,  and  waned,  and  waned 
away  to  silence. 

Down  came  the  captain :  "  Doctor,  the  ice  has 
caught  us :  we  are  frozen  up."  On  went  my  furs  at 
once.  As  I  reached  the  deck,  the  wind  was  there, 
blowing  stiff,  and  the  sails  were  filled  and  pujQing  with 
it.  It  was  not  yet  dark  enough  to  hide  the  smooth 
surface  of  ice  that  filled  up  the  horizon,  holding  the 
American  expedition  in  search  of  Sir  John  Franklin 
imbedded  in  its  centre.  There  we  were,  literally  fro- 
zen tight  in  the  mid-channel  of  Wellington's  Straits. 

"September  15.  The  change  of  tide,  or,  rather,  those 
diurnal  changes  in  the  movement  of  the  ice  which 
seem  to  be  indirectly  connected  with  it,  gave  us  a  lit- 
tle while  before  noon  a  partial  opening  in  the  solid  ice 
around  us.  We  made  by  hard  work  about  a  mile,  and 
were  then  more  fast  than  ever.  The  ice  along  side 
will  now  bear  a  man :  the  wind,  however,  is  hauling 


•m 


'  !" 


fei. 


f. 


] 


i 

r    ( 


;!! 


i 


iS 
W 


f}\ 


[3  !i 


■•i 


190 


THE    BALLOON. 


around  to  the  westward.  With  a  strong  northwester, 
there  might  still  be  a  hope  for  us. 

"  This  afternoon,  at  6h.  20m.,  a  large  spheroidal  mass 
was  seen  floating  in  the  air  at  an  unknown  distance 
to  the  north.  It  undulated  for  a  while  over  the  ice- 
lined  horizon  of  Wellington  Channel ;  and  after  a  lit- 
tle while,  another,  smaller  than  the  first,  became  \is- 
ible  a  short  distance  below  it.  They  receded  with 
the  wind  from  the  southward  and  eastward,  but  did 
not  disappear  for  some  time.  Captain  De  Haven  at 
first  thought  it  a  kite ;  but,  independently  of  the  dif- 
ficulty of  imagining  a  kite  flying  without  a  master, 
and  where  no  master  could  be,  its  outline  and  move- 
ment convinced  me  it  was  a  balloon.  The  Resolute 
dispatched  a  courier  balloon  on  the  2d ;  but  ^,hat  could 
never  have  survived  the  storms  of  the  past  week.  I 
therefore  suppose  it  must  have  been  sent  up  by  some 
English  vessel  to  the  west  of  us. 

"  I  make  a  formal  note  of  this  circumstance,  trivii  1 
as  it  may  be ;  for  at  first  Franklin  rose  to  my  mind, 
as  possibly  signalizing  up  Wellington  Channel." 

Cape  Hotliam  was  at  this  time  nearly  in  range,  from 
our  position,  with  the  first  headland  to  the  west  of  it ; 
and  our  captain  estimated  that  we  were  about  thirty 
miles  from  the  eastern  side  of  the  strait.  The  balloon 
was  to  leeward,  nearly  due  north  of  us,  more  so  than 
could  be  referred  to  the  course  of  the  wiad  as  we  ob- 
served it,  supposing  it  to  have  set  out  frOiH  any  vessel 
of  whose  place  we  were  aware.  It  appeared  to  me, 
the  principal  one,  about  two  feet  long  by  eighteen 
inches  broad ;  its  appendage  larger  than  an  ordinary 
dinner-plate.  The  incident  interested  us  much  at  the 
time,  and  I  have  not  seen  any  thing  in  the  published 
journals  of  the  English  searchers  that  explains  it. 


■^m^ 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


The  region,  which  ten  days  before  was  teeming 
with  animal  life,  was  now  almost  deserted.  We  saw 
but  one  narwhal  and  a  few  seal.  The  Ivory  gull  too, 
a  solitary  traveler,  occasionally  flitted  by  us ;  but  the 
season  had  evidently  wrought  its  change. 

Several  flocks  of  the  snow  bunting  had  passed  over 
us  while  we  were  attached  to  the  main  ice  off"  Grif- 
fith's Island,  and  a  single  raven  was  seen  from  the 
Rescue  at  her  holding  grounds.  The  Brent  geese,  how- 
ever, the  dovekies,  the  divers,  indeed  all  the  anatidsB, 
the  white  whales,  the  walrus,  the  bearded  and  the  hir- 
sute seal,  the  white  bear,  whatever  gave  us  life  and 
incident,  had  vanished. 

The  following  Sunday,  the  15th,  was  signalized  by 
the  introduction  of  a  bright  new  "  Cornelius"  lard  lamp 
into  the  cabin,  a  luxury  which  I  had  often  urged  be- 
fore, but  which  the  difficulties  of  opening  the  hold  had 
compelled  the  captain  to  deny  us.  The  condensation 
of  moisture  had  been  excessive  ;  the  beams  had  been 
sweating  great  drops,  and  my  bedding  and  bunk-boards 
bore  the  look  of  having  been  exposed  to  a  drizzling 
mist.  The  temperature  had  been  below  the  freezing 
point  for  a  week  before.  The  lamp  gave  us  the  very 
comfortable  warmth  of  44°,  twelve  degrees  above  con- 
gelation. It  was  a  luxury  such  as  few  but  Arctic 
travelers  can  apprehend. 

For  some  days  after  this,  an  obscurity  of  fog  and 
snow  made  it  impossible  to  see  more  than  a  few  hund- 
red yards  from  the  ship.    This  little  area  remained 


I  if 


III' 


,  I' 


t       ! 


■J     ' 


1 

'Mill 

!•:  P^ 

Pi- 

. 

192 


DRIFT    UP    CHANNEL. 


fast  bound,  the  ice  bearing  us  readily,  though  a  very- 
slight  motion  against  the  sides  of  the  vessel  seemed  to 
show  that  it  was  not  perfectly  attached  to  the  shores. 
But  as  I  stood  on  deck  in  the  afternoon  of  the  16th, 
watching  the  coast  to  the  east  of  us,  as  the  clouds 
cleared  away  for  the  first  time,  it  struck  me  that  its 
configuration  was  unknown  to  me.  By-and-by,  Cape 
Beechy,  the  isthmus  of  the  Graves,  loomed  up ;  and 
we  then  found  that  we  were  a  little  to  the  north  of 
Cape  Bowden. 

The  next  two  days  this  northward  drift  continued 
without  remission.  The  wind  blew  strong  from  the 
southward  and  eastward,  sometimes  approaching  to  a 
gale  ;  but  the  ice-pack  around  us  retained  its  tenacity, 
and  increased  rapidly  in  thickness. 

Yet  every  now  and  then  we  could  see  that  at  some 
short  distance  it  was  broken  by  small  pools  of  water, 
which  would  be  effaced  again,  soon  after  they  were 
formed,  by  an  external  pressure.  At  these  times  our 
vessels  underwent  a  nipping  on  a  small  scale.  The 
smoother  ice-field  that  held  us  would  be  driven  in,  pil- 
ing itself  in  miniature  hummocks  about  us,  sometimes 
higher  than  our  decks,  and  much  too  near  them  to 
leave  us  a  sense  of  security  against  their  further  ad- 
vance. The  noises,  too,  of  whining  puppies  and  swarm- 
ing bees  made  part  of  these  demonstrations,  much,  as 
when  the  heavier  masses  were  at  work,  but  shriller 
perhaps,  and  more  clamorous. 

I  was  aroused  at  midnight  of  the  16th  by  one  of 
these  onsets  of  the  enemy,  crunching  and  creaking 
against  the  ship's  sides  till  the  masses  ground  them- 
selves to  powder.  Our  vessel  was  trembling  like  an 
ague-fit  under  the  pressure ;  and  when  so  pinched  that 
she  could  not  vibrate  any  longer  between  the  driving 


UP    WELLINGTON    CHANNEL. 


193 


and  the  stationary  fields,  making  a  quick,  liberating 
jump  above  them  that  rattled  the  movables  fore  and 
aft.  As  it  wore  on  toward  morning,  the  ice,  now  ten 
inches  thick,  kept  crowding  upon  us  with  increased 
energy;  and  the  whole  of  the  17  th  was  passed  in  a 
succession  of  conflicts  with  it. 

The  18th  began  with  a  nipping  that  promised  more 
of  danger.  The  banks  of  ice  rose  one  above  another 
till  they  reached  the  line  of  our  bulwarks.  This,  too, 
continued  through  the  day,  sometimes  lulling  for  a 
while  into  comparative  repose,  but  recurring  after  a 
few  minutes  of  partial  intermission.  While  I  was 
watching  this  angry  contest  of  the  ice-tables,  as  they 
clashed  together  in  the  da,rkness  of  early  dawn,  I  saw 
for  the  first  time  the  luminous  appearance,  which  has 
been  described  by  voyagers  as  attending  the  collision 
of  bergs.  It  was  very  marked ;  as  decided  a  phos- 
phorescence as  that  of  the  fire-fly,  or  the  fox-fire  of  the 
Virginia  meadows. 

Still,  amid  all  the  tumult,  our  drift  was  toward  the 
north.  From  the  bearings  of  the  coast,  badly  obtained 
through  the  fogs,  it  was  quite  evident  that  we  had 
passed  beyond  any  thing  recorded  on  the  charts.  Cape 
Bowden,  Parry's  furthest  headland,  was  at  least  twen- 
ty-five miles  south  of  us ;  and  our  old  landmarks.  Cape 
Hotham  and  Beechy,  had  entirely  disappeared.  Even 
the  high  bluffs  of  Barlow's  Inlet  had  gone.  I  hardly 
know  why  it  was  so,  but  this  inlet  had  some  how  or 
other  been  for  me  an  object  of  special  aversion :  the 
naked  desolation  of  its  frost-bitten  limestone,  the  cav- 
ernous recess  of  its  clifl's,  the  cheerlessness  of  its  dark 
shadows,  had  connected  it,  from  the  first  day  I  saw  it, 
with  some  dimly-remembered  feeling  of  pain.  But 
how  glad  we  should  all  of  us  have  been,  as  we  floated 

N 


-  *, 


nu'.f 


i  ill 


■I        > 


I    ir 


194 


DISCOVERIES. 


irt. 


\^4 


■ji 


s     •^»: 


'id!! 


•1     Hi! 


along  in  hopeless  isolation,  to  find  a  way  open  to  its 
grim  but  protecting  barriers. 

I  return  to  my  journal. 

"  September  19,  Thursday.  About  five  o'clock  this 
morning  the  wind  set  in  from  the  northward  and  east- 
ward ;  but  the  ice  was  tightly  compacted,  and  for  a 
while  did  not  budge.  Presently,  however,  we  could 
see  the  water-pools  extending  their  irregular  margins. 
Ahead  of  us,  that  is,  still  further  to  the  north,  was  ice 
apparently  more  solid  than  the  ten-inch  field  around 
us.  It  shot  up  into  larger  hummocks  and  heavier 
masses,  and  was  evidently  thicker  rnd  more  perma- 
nent. It  had  been  for  the  past  two  days  not  more  than 
fifty  yards  ahead,  and  we  called  it  in  the  log  the  '  fixed 
ice.'  By  breakfast -time  this  opened  into  two  long 
pools  on  our  right,  and  one  on  the  left,  which  seemed 
to  extend  pretty  well  toward  the  western  shore.  It 
was  evident  that  we  were  now  drifting  to  the  south- 
ward again. 

"  The  sun,  so  long  obscured,  gave  us  to-day  a  rough 
meridian  altitude.  Murdaugh,  always  active  and  ef- 
ficient, had  his  artificial  horizon  ready  upon  the  ice, 
and  gave  us  an  approximate  latitude.  We  were  in 
75°  20'  11 "  north.  A  large  cape  and  several  smaller 
headlands  were  seen,  together  with  apparently  an  in- 
let or  harbor,  all  on  the  western  side.  They  remain 
unchristened.  From  our  mast-head,  no  positive  land 
was  visible  to  the  north.  Tides  we  have  not  had  the 
means  of  observing.  Our  soundings  on  the  17th  gave 
us  bottom  at  110  fathoms,  nearly  in  mid-channel. 

"September  19, 11  20  P.M.  The  wind  continued  all 
day  from  the  northward  and  westward,  freshening 
gradually  to  a  gale.  The  barometer  fell  from  29°  73'  to 
32,  and  our  maximum  temperature  was  26°.  A  heavy 
fall  of  snow  covered  the  deck. 


DRIFT    NORTHWARD. 


195 


^^ September  20.  I  have  been  keeping  the  first  watch, 
and  anxiously  observing  the  ice ;  for  I  am  no  sailor, 
and  in  emergency  can  only  wake  my  comrades.  The 
darkness  is  now  complete.  The  wind  has  changed 
again.  At  three  A.M.  it  set  in  from  the  southward 
and  eastward,  increasing  gradually  to  a  fresh  gale. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  the  breaking  up  of  the  season,  or 
some  unusual  premonition  of  stern  winter;  but  cer- 
tain it  is  that  our  experience  of  Lancaster  Sound  has 
given  us  any  thing  but  tranquillity  of  winds.  We  en- 
tered on  the  wings  of  a  storm ;  and  ever  since,  with 
the  exception  of  about  three  days  off  Cape  Riley,  we 
have  had  nothing  but  gales,  rising  and  falling  in  al- 
ternating series  from  the  north  to  northward  and  west- 
ward, and  from  the  south  to  southward  and  eastward. 
The  day  was  as  usual  ushered  in  with  snow,  and  the 
thermometer  rose  to  the  height  of  29" ;  yet  to  sensa- 
tion it  was  cold.  There  is  something  very  queer  about 
this  discrepancy  between  the  thermometrical  register 
and  the  effects  of  heat.  It  thawed  palpably  to-day  at 
28° ;  and  yet  all  complain  of  cold,  even  without  the 
influence  of  the  wind. 

"We  are  now,  poor  devils!  drifting  northward  again. 
Creatures  of  habit,  those  who  were  anxious  have  for- 
gotten anxiety :  glued  fast  here  in  a  moving  mass,  we 
eat,  and  drink,  and  sleep,  unmindful  of  the  morrow. 
It  is  almost  beyond  a  doubt  that,  if  we  find  our  way 
through  the  contingencies  of  this  Arctic  autumn,  we 
must  spend  our  winter  in  open  sea.  Many  miles  to 
the  south.  Captain  Back  passed  a  memorable  term  of 
vigil  and  exposure.  Here,  however,  I  do  not  antici- 
pate such  encounters  with  drifting  floes  as  are  spoken 
of  in  Hudson's  Bay.     The  centre  of  greatest  cold  i& 


8 


I  1    :l>i, 


; 


1    '" 

i  I  \^ 


I 


\iV'\\; 


^ 


196 


WELLINGTON    CHANNEL. 


too  near  us,  and  the  coininunication  with  open  sea  too 
distant. 

"1  was  in  the  act  of  writing  the  ahove,  when  a  start- 
ling sensation,  resemhling  the  spring  of  a  well-drawn 
bow,  announced  a  fresh  movement.  Running  on  deck, 
I  found  it  blowing  a  furious  gale,  and  -he  ice  again  in 
motion.  I  use  the  word  motion  inaccurately.  The 
field,  of  which  we  are  a  part,  is  always  in  motion ; 
that  is,  drifting  with  wind  or  current.  It  is  only  when 
other  ice  bears  down  upon  our  own,  or  our  own  ice  is 
borne  in  against  other  floes,  that  pressure  and  resist- 
ance make  us  conscious  of  motion. 

"  The  ice  was  again  in  motion.  The  great  expanse 
of  recently- formed  solidity,  already  bristling  with  hum- 
mocks, had  up  to  this  moment  resisted  the  enormous 
incidence  of  a  heavy  gale.  Suddenly,  however,  the 
pressure  increasing  beyond  its  strength,  it  yielded. 
The  twang  of  a  bow-string  is  the  only  thing  I  can 
compare  it  to.  In  a  single  instant  the  broad  field  was 
rent  asunder,  cracked  in  every  conceivable  direction, 
tables  ground  against  tables,  and  masses  piled  over 
masses.     The  sea  seemed  to  be  churning  ice. 

"  By  the  time  1  had  yoked  my  neck  in  its  scrape, 
and  got  up  upon  deck,  the  ice  had  piled  up  a  couple 
of  feet  above  our  bulwarks.  In  less  than  another  min- 
ute it  had  toppled  over  again,  and  we  were  floating 
helplessly  in  a  confused  mass  of  broken  fragments. 
Fortunately  the  Rescue  remained  fixed ;  our  hawser 
was  fast  to  her  stern,  and  by  it  we  were  brought  side 
by  side  again.  Night  passed  anxiously;  i.  e.,  slept  in 
my  clothes,  and  dreamed  of  being  presented  to  Queen 
Victoria. 

"  September  21,  Saturday.  vVe  have  drifted  still 
more  to  the  northward  and  eastward.    An  observation 


GRINNELL     LAND. 


197 


ting 
)nts. 


still 
.tion 


gave  us  latitude  75"  20'  38"  N.  We  are  apparently 
not  more  than  seven  miles  from  the  shore.  It  is  still 
of  the  characteristic  transition  limestone,  very  uninvit- 
ing, snow-covered,  and  destitute ;  but  we  look  at  it 
longingly.  It  would  be  so  comforting  to  have  landed 
a  small  depot  of  provisions,  in  case  of  accident  or  im- 
paction further  north. 

"No  snow  until  afternoon.  Thermometer,  maxi- 
mum 22°,  minimum  19°,  mean  20°  35'.  Wind  gentle, 
and  now  nearly  calm,  from  southward  and  eastward 
to  southward. 

"About  tea-time  (21st),  the  sun  sufficiently  low  to 
give  the  effects  of  sunset,  we  saw  distinctly  to  the 
north  by  west  a  series  of  hill-tops,  apparently  of  the 
same  configuration  with  those  around  us.  The  trend 
of  the  western  coast  extending  northward  from  the 
point  opposite  our  vessel  receded  westward,  and  a  va- 
cant space,  either  of  unseen  very  low  land  or  of  water, 
separated  it  from  the  Terra  Nova,  which  we  see  north 
of  us.  Whether  this  Grinnell  Land,  as  our  captain 
has  named  it,  be  a  continuation  of  Cornwallis  Island, 
or  a  cape  from  a  new  northern  land,  or  a  new  direc- 
tion of  the  eastern  coast  of  North  Devon,  or  a  new 
island,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say.  We  shall  probably 
know  more  of  each  other  before  long. 

"September  22,  Sunday.  A  cloudless  morning:  no 
snow  till  afternoon.  Our  drift  during  the  night  has 
been  to  the  northward ;  and,  except  an  occasional  crack 
or  pool,  our  horizon  was  one  mass  of  snow-covered 
ice. 

"  The  beautifully  clear  sky  with  which  the  day 
opened  gave  us  another  opportunity  of  seeing  the  un- 
visited  shores  of  Upper  Wellington  Sound.  Our  lati- 
tude by  artificial  horizon  was  75°  24'  21"N.,  about  sixty 


ki'     l''!'i^ 


198 


GRINNELL    LAND. 


)'■:' 


l!li,,„ 


miles  from  Cape  Hotham.  Cape  Bowden,  on  the  east- 
ern side,  has  disappeared ;  and  on  the  west,  Advance 
filuff,  a  dark,  projecting  cape,  from  which  we  took 
sextant  angles,  was  seen  bearing  to  the  west  of  south. 
To  the  northward  and  westward  low  land  was  seen, 
having  the  appearance  of  an  island,*  and  mountain 
-tops  terminating  the  low  strip  ahead.  The  trend  of 
the  shore  on  our  left,  the  western,  is  clearly  to  the 
westward  since  leaving  Advance  Bluff.  It  is  rolling, 
with  terraced  shingle  beach,  and  without  bluffs.  It 
terminates,  or  apparently  terminates,  abruptly,  thus  : 


after  which  comes  a  strip  without  visible  land,  and 
then  the  mountain  tops  mentioned  above.  Beyond  this 
western  shore,  distant  only  seven  miles,  we  see  mount- 
ain tops,  distant  and  very  high,  rising  above  the  clouds. 
^^  September  25,  Wednesday.  The  wind  has  changed, 
so  that  our  helpless  drift  is  now  again  to  the  north. 
The  day  was  comparatively  free  from  snow ;  but  not 
clear  enough  to  give  us  an  observation,  or  to  exhibit 
the  more  distant  coast-lines.  We  can  see  the  western 
shore  very  plainly  covered  with  snow,  and  stretching 
in  rolling  hills  to  the  north  and  west.  A  little  indent- 
ation, nearly  opposite  the  day  before  yesterday,  is  now 
in  nearly  the  same  phase — if  any  thing,  a  little  to  the 
southward.  We  have  therefore  changed  our  position 
by  drift  not  so  much  as  on  the  preceding  days.     The 

*  I  have  followed  my  journal  literally.  I  find,  however,  in  my  copy  of  the 
log-book,  below  the  entry  of  the  watch-officer  which  mentions  this  island,  a 
Hote  made  by  me  at  the  time  :  "  I  can  see  no  island,  but  smiply  this  prolonga- 
tion or  tongue." 


GUINNELL    LAND. 


199 


winds,  however,  have  been  very  light.  Advance  Bluff 
is  now  shut  in  by '  Cape  Rescue,'  the  westernmost  point 
yet  discovered  of  Cornwallis  Island.  This  shows  that 
we  are  nearing  the  shore. 

"  Toward  the  noith  and  a  little  to  the  west  is  a  per- 
manent dark  cloud,  a  line  of  stratus  with  a  cumulated 
thickening  at  the  western  end.  This  is  the  same  dur- 
ing sunshine  and  snow-storm,  night  and  day.  It  is 
thought  by  Captain  De  Haven  to  be  indicative  of  open 
water.  It  may  be  that  Cornwallis  Island  ends  there, 
and  that  this  is  a  continuation  of  the  present  channel 
trending  to  the  westward.  Or  this  dark  appearance 
may  be  merely  the  highland  clouds  over  the  mount- 
ains seen  on  Sunday  ;  but  De  Haven  suggests  that  it 
is  rather  a  vacant  space,  or  water  free  from  ice ;  the 
exemption  being  due  to  the  island  and  adjacent  west- 
ern shore  (not  more  than  seven  miles  from  it),  acting 
as  a  barrier  to  the  northern  drift  of  the  present  chan- 
nel." 


Hlf 


i  !■ 

:    i 


•!J 


1    i 


^U 


;:) 


R^ 


! 


'i    I''!. 


m    I 


■J- 


.fiiji!! 


if    ' 


It      I 


iiil 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

I  HAVE  copied  literally  from  my  journal  the  observ- 
ations which  I  noted  during  our  northward  drift,  be- 
cause some  of  them  bear  on  a  question,  unhappily 
made  one  of  controversy,  as  to  the  extent  and  charac- 
ter of  the  discoveries  which  were  due  to  the  American 
squadron. 

It  has  been  seen  that  on  the  19th  of  September, 
1850,  we  were  in  latitude  75°  20'  11"  N.,  and  proba- 
bly some  seven  miles  from  the  western  shore  of  Wel- 
lington Sound.  At  this  time  I  observed,  but  not  with 
certainty,  a  large  cape,  several  minor  headlands,  and 
an  inlet  or  harbor,  in  the  direction  of  Cornwallis  Isl- 
and. These  may,  perhaps,  have  been  the  Cape  De  Ha- 
ven, Point  Decision,  and  Helen  Haven  or  Harbor,  dis- 
covered and  named  by  Captain  Penny  in  May  of  the 
following  year. 

On  the  21st,  our  latitude  was  75°  20'  38".  The  sky 
being  clear,  and  the  position  of  the  sun  favorable,  I  saw 
distinctly,  bearing  north  by  west,  a  series  of  hill-tops, 
not  mountains,  apparently  of  the  same  configuration 
with  those  around  us,  and  separated  from  Cornwallis 
Island  by  a  strip  of  low  beach  or  by  water.  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  this  was  the  Baillie  Hamilton 
Island,  also  discovered  by  Captain  Penny  in  1851. 

On  the  22d,  our  latitude  was  75°  24'  21".  I  now 
saw  land  to  the  north  and  west ;  its  horizon  that  of 
rolling  ground,  without  bluffs,  and  terminating  abrupt- 
ly at  its  northern  end.  Still  further  on  to  the  north 
came  a  strip  without  visible  land,  and  then  land  again, 


'■I 

V!' 


GRINNELL    LAND. 


201 


with  mountain  tops  distant  and  "rising  above  the 
clouds."  This  last  was  the  land  which  received  from 
Captain  De  Haven  the  name  of  Mr.  Grinnell. 

Captain  De  Haven's  official  report,  made  on  the  4th 
of  October,  1851,  immediately  after  our  return  to  the 
United  States,  speaks  of  a  small,  low  island,  discovered 
about  seven  miles  to  the  north-northwest  on  the  2  2d 
of  September,  1850.  "  A  channel,"  he  says,  "  of  three 
or  four  miles  in  width  separated  it  from  Cornwallis 
Island.  This  latter  island,  trending  northwest  from 
our  position,  terminated  abruptly  in  an  elevated  cape, 
to  which  I  have  given  the  name  of  Manning,  after  a 
warm  personal  friend  and  ardent  supporter  of  the  ex- 
pedition. Between  Cornwallis  Island  and  some  dis- 
tant high  land  visible  in  the  north,  appeared  a  wide 
channel  leading  to  the  westward.  A  dark,  misty-look- 
ing cloud  which  hung  over  it  (technically  termed  frost- 
smoke)  was  indicative  of  much  open  water  in  that  di- 
rection. *  *  *  To  the  channel,  which  appeared 
to  lead  into  the  open  sea,  over  which  the  cloud  of 
'  frost-smoke'  hung  as  a  sign,  I  have  given  the  name 
of  Maury,  after  the  distinguished  gentleman  at  the 
head  of  our  National  Observatory,  whose  theory  with 
regard  to  an  open  sea  to  the  north  is  likely  to  be  real- 
ized through  this  channel.  To  the  large  mass  of  land 
visible  between  northwest  to  north-northeast,  I  gave 
the  name  of  Grinnell,  in  honor  of  the  head  and  heart 
of  the  man  in  whose  philanthropic  mind  originated 
the  idea  of  this  expedition,  and  to  whose  munificence 
it  owes  its  existence. 

"  To  a  remarkable  peak  bearing  N.N.E.  from  us,  dis- 
tant about  forty  miles,  was  given  the  name  of  Mount 
Franklin.  An  inlet  or  harbor  immediately  to  the  north 
of  Cape  Bowden  was  discovered  by  Mr.  Griffin  in  his 


tif 


Ji(  I"' 


If 


,j  hi: 


:!   lii!!';.t 

I  ■ 


ii' 


'  4   ill 


j  ;1  ^' 


202 


GRINNELL    LAND;    OR, 


land  excursion  from  Point  Innes  on  the  27th  of  Au- 
gust, and  has  received  the  name  of  Griffin  Inlet.  The 
small  island  mentioned  before  was  called  Murdaugh's 
Island,  after  the  acting  master  of  the  Advance. 

"  The  eastern  shore  of  Wellington  Channel  appear- 
ed to  run  parallel  with  the  western ;  but  it  became 
quite  low,  and,  being  covered  with  snow,  could  not  be 
distinguished  with  certainty,  so  that  its  continuity 
with  the  high  land  to  the  north  was  not  ascertained." 

These  discoveries,  with  the  exception  of  Murdaugh 
Island,  present  themselves  on  the  English  maps  in 
new  forms  and  with  different  names.  I  do  not  refer 
to  those  which  were  published  in  the  newspapers 
and  by  the  Hydrographic  Office  in  September,  1851; 
though  in  both  of  them  the  name  of  Prince  Albert  has 
the  place  which  our  commander  had  inscribed  a  year 
before  with  that  of  Mr.  Grinnell :  the  authors  of  these 
two  charts  could  hardly  have  been  informed  of  the 
American  discoveries.  I  regret  that  there  is  not  an 
equally  obvious  apology  for  those  who  have  followed 
since.  * 

Mr.  Arrowsmith's  map  of  the  "  Discoveries  in  the 
Arctic  Seas"  bears  the  date  of  the  21st  of  October, 
1851 ;  though  it  was  not  completed,  in  fact,  for  sev- 
eral weeks  afterward.  This  is  clear  from  some  of  the 
discoveries  it  records ;  particularly  those  of  Dr.  Rae, 
which  were  first  announced  to  the  Admiralty  on  the 
10th  of  November.*  The  hydrographical  map  of  the 
British  Admiralty,  with  a  similar  title,  is  dated  in 
April,  1852.  Both  of  these  documents  reassert  the 
name  of  Albert  Land  for  the  large  tract  of  high  lands 
seen  by  us  to  the  north.    In  the  former,  Arrowsmith's, 

*  See  Remarks  made  at  the  meeting  of  the  National  Institute  at  Washington, 
in  May,  1852,  by  the  President  of  the  Institute,  Peter  Force,  Esq. 


ALBERT    LAND. 


203 


the  inscription  runs  thus :  "Albert  Land:  seen  (on  the 
birth-day  of  H.  R.  H.  Prince  Albert)  from  H.  M.  S. 
Assistance,  26th  August,  1850. — Captain  Ommanney's 
Journal  :  independently  seen  and  explored  by  Cap- 
tain Penny  and  his  officers."  The  other,  from  the  hy- 
drographer  of  the  Admiralty,  goes  further :  it  not  only 
inscribes  Albert  Land  on  the  region  we  had  named 
after  Mr.  Grinnell,  but  explains  the  error  of  our  claim, 
by  announcing,  in  a  note,  that  Baillie  Hamilton  Isl- 
and is  the  "  Grinnell  Land  of  the  American  squad- 


» 


ron. 

The  controversy  is  perhaps  of  little  moment.  The 
time  has  gone  by  when  the  mere  sighting  of  a  distant 
coast  conferred  on  a  navigator  or  his  monarch  either 
ownership  of  the  soil  or  a  right  to  govern  its  people : 
even  the  planting  a  flag-staff,  with  armorial  emblazon- 
ments at  the  top  and  a  record-bottle  below  it,  does  not 
insure  nowadays  a  conceded  title.  Yet  the  comity  of 
explorers  has  adopted  the  rule  of  the  more  scientific 
observers  of  nature,  and  holds  it  for  law  every  where 
that  he  who  first  sees  and  first  announces  shall  also 
give  the  name.  I  should  be  sorry  to  withdraw  from 
the  extreme  charts  of  northern  discovery  any  memo- 
rial, even  an  indirect  one,  of  that  Lady  Sovereign, 
whose  noble-spirited  subjects  we  met  in  Lancaster 
Sound.  It  was  only  by  accident  that  we  preceded 
them,  under  the  guidance  of  causes  that  can  assert  for 
us  little  honor,  since  they  were  beyond  our  control, 
and  we  should  have  been  glad  to  escape  them.  But 
we  did  precede  them ;  and  the  most  northern  land  on 
the  meridian  of  94°  west  must  retain,  therefore,  the 
honored  name  which  it  received  from  the  American 
commander. 

A  very  brief  review  of  the  facts  will  establish  this 


i  'J' 
I   : 


\lk 


"nil 


ra    '  I 


j 
1 
i 
i 

I    ii 


204 


GRINNELL    LAND*,    OR, 


beyond  the  chance  of  doubt.  To  those  who  have  read 
Captain  De  Haven's  Report,  even  though  it  were  not 
confirmed  in  its  leading  particulars  by  the  extracts 
from  my  journal,  it  must  be  plain  that  on  the  22d  of 
September,  1850,  the  officers  of  the  American  expedi- 
tion saw,  or  thought  they  saw,  from  a  point  in  lati- 
tude 75°  24'  21",  a  large  tract  of  land,  extending  in 
the  distance  from  the  northwest  to  the  north-north- 
east, and  that  they  gave  to  it  the  name  of  Grinnell 
Land.  The  accounts,  which  filled  the  American  news- 
papers immediately  after  our  return  in  September, 
1851,  announced  this  fact  widely,  and  the  rude  charts 
that  were  inserted  in  several  of  them  indicated  both 
the  locality  and  the  name.  When  this  announcement 
was  made,  it  was  not  known  or  supposed  that  any 
other  party  had  ever  sighted  this  high  northern  tract. 
There  was  no  one  from  whom  the  Americans  could 
have  borrowed  the  knowledge  of  its  existence,  posi- 
tion, or  outline.  The  fact,  more  recently  ascertained, 
that  others  also  have  seen  a  similar  tract  in  the  same 
direction,  may  confirm  the  truth  of  the  American  state- 
ment ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  it  can  be  re- 
garded as  impeaching  it.  It  only  proves  that  the  land 
is  there,  as  the  American  commander  said  it  was; 
while  to  those  who  doubt  his  assertion  that  he  discov- 
ered it,  it  leaves  the  somewhat  puzzling  question,  bow 
it  came  to  pass  that  he  knew  of  its  existence. 
.  But  it  is  not  alone  the  report  of  Captain  De  Haven, 
corroborated  by  memoranda  made  on  the  spot — it  is 
not  on  these  alone  that  the  asserted  discovery  rests. 
All  the  officers  of  the  American  squadron  were  present 
at  the  time  when  it  is  said  to  have  taken  place ;  they 
were  all  of  them  in  New  York  when  the  accounts  of 
it  were  in  the  newspapers ;  they  have  all  of  them  read 


■ 

a. 


'i]ii«! 


Mi 


ALBERT    LAND. 


205 


the  official  report  of  their  commander ;  and  there  is  not 
a  man  among  them  who  would  have  given  for  a  sin- 
gle moment  the  countenance  of  his  silence  to  a  fabri- 
cated claim.  I  can  not  allow  myself  to  discuss  this 
branch  of  the  question  any  further. 

A  glance  at  the  map  is  the  fitting  reply  to  the  inti- 
mation of  the  British  hydrographer,  that  the  Grinnell 
Land  of  the  American  squadron  was  in  fact  Baillie 
Hamilton  Island.  Baillie  Hamilton  Island,  as  it  is 
marked  on  all  the  maps,  bears  considerably  to  the  west 
of  northwest  from  the  position  of  our  vessel  on  the  2 2d 
of  September.  What  Captain  De  Haven  saw,  and  de- 
scribed and  plotted,  was  a  tract  extending  from  the 
northwest  to  the  north-northeast  of  the  same  position. 
It  is  scarcely  a  warranted  assumption  that  the  Amer- 
ican explorers  mistook  the  bearings  of  the  land  some 
sixty  or  seventy  degrees.* 

If  it  be  conceded,  then,  that  the  American  squadron 
did  in  fact  discover  the  land  in  question  in  September, 
1850,  we  are  ready  for  the  next  inquiry.  Had  any  one 
discovered  it  before  them  ? 

No  doubt  it  was  visited  by  Mr.  Stewart,  one  of  Cap- 
tain Penny's  officers,  on  the  24th  of  May,  1851 ;  and 
it  is  certain  that,  after  Captain  Penny's  return,  it  was 
announced  as  his  discovery,  and  took  the  name  of  Al- 
bert Land  on  the  maps  of  Arrowsmith  and  of  the  Admi« 

*  Our  expedition  was  well  supplied  with  chronometers.  Besides  several  of 
the  best  English  manufacture,  carefully  selected  and  tested  at  the  National  Ob- 
servatory,  we  had  three  from  Bliss  and  Creighton,  of  New  York.  One  of  these, 
under  the  charge  of  Mr.  Murdaugh,  our  master,  varied  from  its  given  rate,  be- 
tween the  18th  of  May,  1850,  and  the  3d  of  October,  1851,  10  rain.  45' ;  show- 
ing a  daily  error  of  yj|^  of  a  second  of  time.  Such  an  error,  computed  up  to 
the  22d  of  September,  1850,  would  be  equal,  in  latitude  75°  24'  11",  to  an  error 
of  position  of  less  than  a  mile  and  a  half.  The  weather,  however,  was  rarely 
favorable  for  astronomical  observations.  The  most  reliable  one  which  I  find 
noted  in  my  copy  of  the  Log  gives  for  our  longitude,  in  our  extreme  drift  to  the 
north,  93°  31'  10"  W. 


■t 


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% 


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ill*;,  j,.lr 


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t  ■''■'     ..- 
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iJ 


''fiii 


206 


GRINNELL    LAND;    OR, 


ralty  of  September,  1851.  But  this  was  eight  months 
after  it  had  been  seen  by  us  and  received  its  American 
designation. 

The  Arrowsmith  map  of  October  21,  or  rather,  as 
we  have  seen,  of  November,  1851 — it  is  immaterial 
which  is  regarded  as  the  true  date — was  completed 
after  the  discovery  of  G  rinnell  Land  by  the  Americans 
had  been  made  known  in  England.  Our  squadron 
arrived  at  New  York  on  the  30th  of  September,  1851, 
and  the  intelligence  crossed  the  Atlantic  by  the  next 
steamer.  It  was  in  the  maps  published  immediately 
after  this  that  it  was  first  made  known  to  the  world 
that  the  English  discovery  was  older  by  nine  months 
than  had  been  supposed  before;  and  that  the  very 
name  of  Albert  Land,  which  this  region  had  received 
either  from  Penny  or  the  hydrographer,  after  Penny's 
return  in  September,  1851,  had,  by  a  coincidence  as 
striking  as  it  was  happy,  been  conferred  upon  it  on 
the  26th  of  August,  1850,  by  another  officer,  in  honor 
of  the  day  on  which  he  had  himself  seen  it;  a  day 
doubly  fortunate  as  the  natal  day  of  the  prince  con- 
sort and  of  Captain  Ommanney's  discovery. 

Yet  another  notice,  in  the  recent  work  of  Dr.  Suth- 
erland, defines  the  authorship  of  this  discovery  still 
more  precisely.  Passing  by  the  American  claim  with- 
out remarking  even  that  it  ever  was  asserted,  this  writ- 
er allots  the  honor  alternatively  to  Captain  Penny's 
party  in  May,  1851,  or  to  Captain  Ommanney,  of  the 
Assistance,  and  Mr.  Manson,  mate  of  the  Sophia,  on 
the  26th  of  August,  1850. 

It  was  for  me  a  matter  of  curious  inquiry,  upon  what 
evidence  this  newest  claim  of  discovery  might  rest. 
I  have  examined  with  all  care  Captain  Ommanney's 
report  to  Commodore  Austin  of  the  10th  of  Septem- 


'^$£.^  <£ 


ALBERT    LAND. 


207 


on 

rhat 
•est. 
ey's 
;em- 


ber,  1850,  and  Commodore  Austin's  official  reports  of 
subsequent  date,  and  have  looked  through  the  differ- 
ent letters  of  Captain  Penny,  who  was  the  command- 
er of  Mr.  Manson,  without  discovering  one  word  in  any 
of  them  that  could  suggest,  or  imply,  or  support  such 
a  claim.  Indeed,  I  am  not  aware  that  either  Captain 
Ommanney  or  Mr.  Manson  has  authorized  the  asser- 
tion of  it.  Happily,  the  question  may  be  decided  with- 
out appealing  to  negative  evidence.  It  is  a  fact,  sus- 
ceptible of  demonstration,  that  neither  of  them  did  or 
could  make  the  discovery  which  is  now  imputed  to 
them. 

On  the  26th  of  August,  1850,  Captain  Ommanney 
was  on  board  his  own  vessel,  the  Assistance.  He  had 
been  detached  by  Commodore  Austin  to  make  a  thor- 
ough examination  of  the  coast  about  Cape  Hotham, 
and  on  the  evening  of  the  25th  he  was  fairly  imbedded 
and  fast  in  the  ice  between  that  point  and  Barlow's 
Inlet.  He  was  seen  there  by  Mr.  Penny,  by  Commo- 
dore Austin,  and  by  every  one  on  board  the  Advance. 
He  may  not  have  been  seen  there  by  some  of  his  Brit- 
ish associates  on  the  26th,  for  a  reason  which  I  shall 
advert  to  presently;  but  on  the  27th  he  was  there 
still,  and  his  own  report  shows  that  he  remained  there 
till  the  3d  of  September.  Now  he  who  feels  interest 
enough  in  the  question  to  extend  a  scale  upon  any  of 
the  charts,  will  prove  for  himself  that  on  the  26th  of 
August,  Captain  Ommanney,  being  then  off  Cape  Ho- 
tham, was  at  the  distance  of  a  hundred  miles  from  the 
land  he  is  supposed  to  have  that  day  discovered.  We 
had  drifted  more  than  sixty  miles  to  the  north  of  his 
position  before  we  saw  that  land,  and  it  was  then  some 
forty  miles  still  further  to  the  north.  We  lost  it  again 
when  we  had  drifted  back  ten  miles  to  the  south. 


208 


GRINNELL    LAND;    OR, 


\f 


>.  .'/s 


I      ' 


On  the  26th  we  were  off  Cape  Innis,  and  Captain 
Ommanney  about  ten  miles  further  to  the  south.  Our 
log-book  speaks  of  two  vessels  beset  in  the  ice  off  Cape 
Hotham,  which  were  no  doubt  his ;  but  the  state  of 
the  atmosphere  was  such  as  to  make  it  impossible  to 
recognize  any  thing  at  that  distance.  My  meteoro- 
logical  record  for  the  day  shows  this :  it  was  dull  and 
heavy,  till  it  was  relieved  by  a  fall  of  snow. 

The  journal  recently  published  by  Dr.  Sutherland 
shows  it  also.  Under  the  date  of  August  26th,  it  says : 
"At  one  o'clock  A.M.  the  ships  were  made  fast  to  the 
floe,  to  take  some  water  from  it,  and  to  wait  until  the 
weather  should  clear  up ;"  and  "  during  the  day  the 
weather  was  almost  perfectly  calm,  the  sky  was  over- 
cast with  a  dense  misty  haze,  and  toward  evening  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  soft  snow." — ^Vol.  i.,  p.  296,  298. 
Captain  Ommanney  himself,  writing  on  the  10th  of 
September,  says :  "  During  the  day  (the  25th  of  Au- 
gust), we  kept  along  the  solid  field  of  ice,  extending 
from  Cape  Innis  to  Barlow's  Inlet,  which  bounded  the 
horizon  to  the  northward,  and  where  no  land  was  vis- 
ible.  When  six  miles  east  of  Barlow's  Inlet,  the  pack- 
ice  closed  in  and  stopped  my  further  progress.  In  this 
position  we  continued  beset  in  Wellington  Channel 
from  the  25th  ultimo  to  the  3d  instant,  strong  south- 
easterly winds  and  thick  weather  prevailing."  The 
question  of  discovery  by  Captain  Ommanney  on  the 
26th  of  August  resolves  itself,  therefore,  into  this.  Could 
he,  when  objects  were  not  distinguishable  at  ten  miles 
distance,  make  discoveries  at  the  distance  of  a  hund- 
red? 

As  to  Mr.  Manson,  he  was  on  board  the  Sophia  on 
the  25th,  and  does  not  appear,  from  Dr.  Sutherland's 
journal,  to  have  left  her  for  some  time  afterward.    On 


ALBERT    LAND. 


209 


the  26th,  Captain  Penny  was  on  board  the  Advance, 
in  company  with  some  of  the  officers  of  the  Sophia, 
Mr.  Hanson  perhc.ps  among  the  rest ;  and  it  is  enough 
for  me  to  say  that,  among  the  many  interesting  pieces 
of  information  which  we  derived  from  that  honest  and 
communicative  seaman,  the  crowning  fact  of  such  a 
discovery  by  his  mate  was  not  included.  For  the  rest, 
the  journals  I  have  already  quoted  show  that  no  one 
on  board  the  Sophia  could  that  day  have  made  any 
distant  discovery  at  all. 

I  pass  gladly  to  other  topics.  The  nobility  of  char- 
acter and  feeling  that  distinguished  our  British  friends 
of  Union  Bay,  and  the  weighty  obligations  I  am  un- 
der to  the  generous  men  who  preside  in  the  depart- 
ments of  the  British  Admiralty,  especially  the  hydro- 
graphic,  have  made  this  discussion  a  most  unwelcome 
one.  My  recollections  as  a  subordinate,  and  my  much 
more  limited  experience  as  a  superior,  have  taught  me 
that  the  principal  should  not  always  be  held  answer- 
able for  that  which  bears  the  sanction  of  his  name ; 
and  I  am,  besides,  old  enough  to  know,  that  the  chari- 
ty I  extend  to  the  erroneous  opinions  of  others,  may 
often  be  invoked  more  properly  for  errors  of  my  own. 

O 


la  on 
ind's 
On 


m 


f* 


1^' 


h 


i  M 


f\\ 


i  '  i 


ji      Mr 


IS 


THE  AOVANCB  IN  THE  ICE,  36tH  SEPTEMBER,  ISSO. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

I  AM  reluctant  to  burden  my  pages  with  the  wild, 
but  scarcely  varied  incidents  of  our  continued  drift 
through  Wellington  Channel.  We  were  yet  to  be  fa- 
miliarized  with  the  strife  of  the  ice-tables,  now  broken 
up  into  tambling  masses,  and  piling  themselves  in 
angry  confusion  against  our  sides — now  fixed  in  cha- 
otic disarray  by  the  fields  of  new  ice  that  imbedded 
them  in  a  single  night — again,  perhaps,  opening  in 
treacherous  pools,  only  to  close  round  us  with  a  force 
that  threatened  to  grind  our  brigs  to  powder.  I  shall 
have  occasion  enough  to  speak  of  these  things  here- 
after. I  give  now  a  few  extracts  from  my  journal ; 
some  of  which  may  perhaps  have  interest  of  a  differ- 
ent character,  though  they  can  not  escape  the  sadden- 
ing monotony  of  the  scenes  that  were  about  us. 

I  begin  with  a  partial  break-up  that  occurred  on  the 
23d. 

"  September  23.  How  shall  I  describe  to  you  this 
pressure,  its  fearfulness  and  sublimity !     Nothing  that 


AN    ICE    BATTLE. 


211 


I  have  seen  or  read  of  approaches  it.  The  voices  of 
the  ice  and  the  heavy  swash  of  the  overturned  hum- 
mock-tables are  at  this  moment  dinning  in  my  ears. 
'  All  hands'  are  on  deck  fighting  our  grim  enemy. 

"  Fourteen  inches  of  solid  ice  thickness,  with  some 
half  dozen  of  snow,  are,  with  the  slow  uniform  advance 
of  a  mighty  propelling  power,  driving  in  upon  our  ves- 
sel. As  they  strike  her,  the  semi-plastic  mass  is  im- 
pressed with  a  mould  of  her  side,  and  then,  urged  on 
by  the  force  behind,  slides  upward,  and  rises  in  great 
vertical  tables.  When  these  attain  their  utmost  height, 
still  pressed  on  by  others,  they  topple  over,  and  form 
a  great  embankment  of  fallen  tables.  At  the  same 
time,  others  take  a  downward  direction,  and  when 
pushed  on,  as  in  the  other  case,  form  a  similar  pile  un- 
derneath. The  side  on  which  one  or  the  other  of  these 
actions  takes  place  for  the  time,  varies  with  the  direc- 
tion of  the  force,  the  strength  of  the  opposite  or  resist- 
ing side,  the  inclination  of  the  vessel,  and  the  weight 
of  the  superincumbent  mounds ;  and  as  these  condi- 
tions  follow  each  other  in  varying  succession,  the  ves- 
sel becomes  perfectly  imbedded  after  a  little  while  in 
crumbling  and  fractured  ice. 

"  Perhaps  no  vessel  has  ever  been  in  this  position 
but  our  own.  With  matured  ice,  nothin,  Df  iron  or 
wood  could  resist  such  pressure.  As  for  vhe  British 
vessels,  their  size  would  make  it  next  to  impossible 
for  them  to  stand.  Back's  '  Winter'  is  the  only  thing 
I  have  read  of  that  reminds  me  of  our  present  predica- 
ment. No  vessel  has  ever  been  caught  by  winter  in 
these  waters. 

"  We  are  lifted  bodily  eighteen  inches  out  of  water. 
The  hummocks  are  reared  up  around  the  ship,  so  as 
to  rise  in  some  cases  a  couple  of  feet  above  our  bul- 


'»,i;  I' 


^!  1 


212 


IN    THE    ICE    OF    THE    CHANNEL. 


warks — five  feet  above  our  deck.  They  are  very  often 
ten  and  twelve  feet  high.  All  hands  are  out,  labor- 
ing with  picks  and  crowbars  to  overturn  the  fragments 
that  threaten  to  overwhelm  us.  Add  to  this  darkness, 
snow,  cold,  and  the  absolute  destitution  of  surround- 
ing shores. 

"This  uprearing  of  the  ice  is  not  a  slow  work :  it  is 
progressive,  but  not  slow.  It  was  only  at  4  P.M.  that 
the  nips  began,  and  now  the  entire  plain  is  triangula- 
ted with  ice-barricades.  Under  the  double  influence 
of  sails  and  warping-hawsers,  we  have  not  been  able 
to  budge  a  hair's-breadth.  Yet,  impelled  by  this  irre- 
sistible, bearing-down  floe-monster,  we  crush,  grind, 
eat  our  way,  surrounded  by  the  ruins  of  our  progress. 
In  fourteen  minutes  we  changed  our  position  80  feet, 
or  5.71  per  minute. 

"  Sometimes  the  ice  cracks  with  violence,  almost  ex- 
plosive, throughout  the  entire  length  of  the  floe.  Very 
grand  this !  Sometimes  the  hummock  masses,  piled 
up  like  crushed  sugar  around  the  ship,  suddenly  sink 
into  the  sea,  and  then  fresh  mounds  take  their  place. 

"Our  little  neighbor,  the  Rescue,  is  all  this  time 
within  twenty  yards  of  us,  resting  upon  wedges  of  ice, 
and  not  subjected  to  movement  or  pressure — a  fact  of 
interest,  as  it  shows  how  very  small  a  difference  of  po- 
sition  may  determine  the  differing  fate  of  two  vessels. 

"September  24.  The  ice  is  kinder;  no  fresh  move- 
ments ;  a  little  whining  in  the  morning,  but  since  then 
undisturbed.  The  ice,  however,  is  influenced  by  the 
wind ;  for  open  water-pools  have  formed — three  around 
the  ship  within  eye  distance.  In  one  of  these,  the 
seals  made  their  appearance  toward  noon ;  no  less  than 
five  disporting  together  among  the  sludge  of  the  open 
water.    I  started  off"  on  a  perilous  walk  over  the  ruin- 


WELLINGTON    CHANNEL. 


218 


ed  barricades  of  last  night's  commotion;  and,  after  cool- 
ing myself  for  forty  minutes  in  an  atmosphere  ten  de- 
grees  above  zero,  came  back  without  a  shot.  The 
condensed  moisture  had  so  affected  my  powder  that  I 
could  not  get  my  gun  off. 

"  This  condensation  is  now  very  troublesome,  drip- 
ping down  from  our  carlines,  andi  sweating  over  the 
roof  and  berth-boards.  When  we  open  the  hatchway, 
the  steam  rises  in  clouds  from  the  little  cabin  below. 

"  We  have  as  yet  no  fires ;  worse !  the  state  of  un- 
certainty in  which  we  are  placed  makes  it  impossible 
to  resort  to  any  winter  arrangements.  Yet  these  lard 
lamps  give  us  a  temperature  of  46'',  which  to  men  like 
ourselves,  used  to  constant  out-door  exercise,  exposure, 
and  absence  of  artificial  heat,  is  quite  genial.  But  for 
the  moisture — that  wretched,  comfortless,  rheumatic 
drawback — we  would  be  quite  snug. 

"  Our  captain  is  the  best  of  sailors ;  but,  intent  al- 
ways  on  the  primary  objects  and  duties  of  his  cruise, 
he  is  apt  to  forget  or  postpone  a  provident  regard  for 
those  creature-comforts  which  have  interest  for  others. 
To-day,  with  the  thermometer  at  10°,  we  for  the  first 
time  commenced  the  manufacture  of  stove-pipes.  1 
need  not  say  that  the  cold  metal  played  hob  with  the 
tinkers.  If  they  go  on  at  the  present  rate,  the  pipes 
will  be  nearly  ready  by  next  summer. 

^^ September  28.  The  hummocks  around  us  still  re- 
main without  apparent  motion,  heaped  up  like  snow- 
covered  barriers  of  street  rioters.  W*^  are  wedged  in 
a  huge  mass  of  tables,  completely  out  of  water,  cra- 
dled by  ice.  I  wish  it  would  give  us  an  even  keel. 
We  are  eighteen  inches  higher  on  one  quarter  than 
the  other. 

"  The  two  large  pools  we  observed  yesterday,  one  on 


n 


\i 

I 


I 


! 


■■"■'111 


^  ■'     . 

'i 


'I 


'I 
i    "I 


3 


214 


SEAL    HUNTING. 


each  side  of  us,  are  now  coated  by  a  thick  film  of  ice. 
In  this  the  poor  seals  sometimes  show  themselves  in 
groups  of  half  a  dozen.  They  no  longer  sport  about 
as  they  did  three  weeks  ago,  but  rise  up  to  their  breasts 
through  young  ice,  and  gaze  around  with  curiosity- 
smitten  countenances. 

"  The  shyness  of  the  seal  is  proverbial.  The  Esqui- 
maux, trained  from  earliest  youth  to  the  pursuit  of 
them,  regard  a  successful  hunter  as  the  great  man  of 
the  settlement.  If  not  killed  instantaneously,  the  seal 
sinks  and  is  lost.  The  day  before  yesterday,  I  adopted 
the  native  plan  of  silent  watching  beside  a  pool.  Thus 
for  a  long  time  I  was  exposed  to  a  temperature  of  +8° ; 
but  no  shots  within  head-range  oifered ;  and  I  knew 
that,  unless  the  spinal  column  or  base  of  the  brain 
was  entered  by  the  ball,  it  would  be  useless  to  waste 
our  already  scanty  ammunition. 

"  To-day,  however,  I  was  more  fortunate.  A  fine 
young  seal  rose  about  forty  yards  off,  and  I  put  the 
ball  between  the  ear  and  eye.  A  boat  was  run  over 
the  ice,  and  the  carcass  secured.  This  is  the  second 
I  have  killed  with  this  villainous  carbine :  it  will  be  a 
valuable  help  to  our  sick.  We  are  now  very  fond  of 
seal-meat.  It  is  far  better  than  bear;  and  the  fishi- 
ness,  which  at  first  disturbed  us,  is  no  longer  disagree- 
able. I  simply  skin  them,  retaining  the  blubber  with 
the  pelt.  The  cold  soon  renders  them  solid.  My  bear, 
although  in  a  barrel,  is  as  stiff  and  hard  as  horn. 

**  Took  a  skate  this  morning  over  some  lakelets  re- 
cently frozen  over.  The  ice  was  tenacious,  but  not 
strong  enough  for  safety.  As  I  was  moving  along  over 
the  tickly-henders,  my  ice-pole  drove  a  hole,  and  came 
very  near  dropping  through  into  the  water. 

^^ September  27.  This  evening  the  thermometer  gave 


WELLINGTON    CHANNEL. 


215 


3*  above  zero.  A  bit  of  ice,  which  I  took  into  my 
mouth  to  suck,  fastened  on  to  my  tongue  and  carried 
away  the  skin.  When  we  open  the  cabin  hatch  now, 
a  cloud  of  steam,  visible  only  as  the  two  currents  meet, 
gives  evidence  of  the  Arctic  condensation. 

"Afar  off,  skipping  from  hummock  to  hummock,  I 
saw  a  black  fox.  Poor  desolate  devil!  what  did  he, 
so  far  from  his  recorded  home,  seven  miles  from  even 
the  nal.  h!  mow-hills  of  this  dreary  wilderness  ?  In 
the  night-time  I  heard  him  bark.  They  set  a  trap  for 
him ;  but  I  secretly  placed  a  bigger  bait  outside,  with- 
out a  snare-loop  or  trigger.  In  the  morning  it  was 
gone,  and  the  dead-fall  had  fallen  upon  no  fox.  How 
the  poor,  hungry  thing  must  have  enjoyed  his  supper  ! 
half  the  guts,  the  spleen,  and  the  pluck  of  my  seal. 

"  Lovell  raised  a  swing ;  cold  work,  but  good  exer- 
cise. He  rigged  it  from  the  main  studding-sail  boom. 
Murdaugh  and  Carter  are  building  a  snow-house.  The 
doctor  is  hard  at  work  patching  up  materials  for  an 
overland  communication  with  the  English  squadron 
— an  enterprise  fast  becoming  desperate.  Yet,  drift- 
ing as  we  are  to  unknown  regions  north,  it  is  of  vast 
importance  that  others  should  know  of  our  position  and 
prospects." 

Our  position,  however,  at  the  end  of  September, 
thanks  to  the  rapidly-increasing  cold,  gave  promise  of 
a  certain  degree  of  security  and  rest.  The  Advance 
had  been  driven,  by  the  superior  momentum  of  the 
floes  that  pressed  us  on  one  side,  some  two  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  into  the  mass  of  less  resisting  floes  on 
the  other  ;  the  Rescue  meanwhile  remaining  station- 
ary ;  and  the  two  vessels  were  fixed  for  a  time  on  two 
adjacent  sides  of  a  rectangle,  and  close  to  each  other. 
The  unseen  and  varying  energies  of  the  ice  movements 


.I'll' 


i.    ■■ 


w\< 


|!i' 


216 


PREPARING  FOR  THE  WINTER. 


had  occasionally  modified  the  position  of  each ;  but 
their  relation  to  each  other  continued  almost  un- 
changed. 

We  felt  that  we  were  fixed  for  the  winter.  We  ar- 
ranged our  rude  embankments  of  ice  and  snow  around 
us,  began  to  deposit  our  stores  within  them,  and  got 
out  our  felt  covering  that  was  to  serve  as  our  winter 
roof.  The  temperature  was  severe,  ranging  from  1°.5, 
and  4°  to  +10° ;  but  the  men  worked  with  the  energy, 
and  hope  too,  of  pioneer  settlers,  when  building  up 
their  first  home  in  our  Western  forests. 

The  closing  day  of  the  month  was  signalized  by  a 
brilliant  meteor,  a  modification  of  the  parhelion,  the 
more  interesting  to  us  because  the  first  we  had  seen. 

^^  October  1,  Tuesday.  To-day  the  work  of  breaking 
hold  commenced.  The  coal  immediately  under  the 
main  hatch  was  passed  up  in  buckets,  and  some  five 
tons  piled  upon  the  ice.  The  quarter-boats  were  haul- 
ed about  twenty  paces  from  our  port-bow,  and  the 
sails  covered  and  stacked ;  in  short,  all  hands  were  at 
work  preparing  for  the  winter.  Little  had  we  calcu- 
lated the  caprices  of  Arctic  ice. 

"  About  ten  o'clock  A.M.  a  large  crack  opened  near- 
ly  east  and  west,  running  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see, 
sometimes  crossing  the  ice-pools,  and  sometimes  break- 
ing along  the  hummock  ridges.  The  sun  and  moon 
will  be  in  conjunction  on  the  3d ;  we  had  notice,  there- 
fore, that  the  spring  tides  are  in  action. 

"  Captain  Griffin  had  been  dispatched  with  Mr.  Lov- 
ell  before  this,  to  establish  on  the  shore  the  site  for  a 
depot  of  provisions :  at  one  o'clock  a  signal  was  made 
to  recall  them.  At  two  P.M.,  seeing  a  seal,  I  ran  out 
upon  the  ice ;  but  losing  him,  was  tempted  to  continue 
on  about  a  mile  to  the  eastward.     The  wind,  which 


REMARKS    ON    THE    ICE-OPENING. 


217 


at 
icu- 


lere- 

ov- 
or  a 
ade 
out 
niie 
lich 


had  been  from  the  westward  all  the  morning,  now 
shifted  to  the  southward,  and  the  ice-tables  began  to 
be  again  in  motion.  The  humming  of  bees  and  up- 
heaving hummocks,  together  with  exploding  cracks, 
warned  me  back  to  the  vessel. 

"  At  3  20,  while  we  were  at  dinner,  commenting 
with  some  anxiety  upon  the  condition  of  things  with- 
out, that  unmistakable  monitor,  the  '  young  puppies,^ 
began.  Running  on  deck,  we  found  a  large  fissure, 
nearly  due  north  and  south,  in  line  with  the  Advance. 
A  few  minutes  after,  the  entire  floe  on  our  starboard 
side  was  moving,  and  the  ice  breaking  up  in  every  di- 
rection. 

"  The  emergency  was  startling  enough.  All  hands 
turned  to,  officers  included.  The  poor  land  party,  re- 
turning at  this  moment,  tired  and  dinnerless,  went  to 
work  with  the  rest.  Vreeland  and  myself  worked  like 
horses.  Before  dark,  every  thing  was  on  board  except 
the  coal ;  and  of  this,  such  were  the  unwearied  efforts 
of  our  crew,  that  we  lost  but  a  ton  or  two. 

"  This  ice-opening  was  instructive  practically,  be- 
cause it  taught  those  of  us  who  did  not  understand  it 
before  how  capriciously  insecure  was  our  position.  It 
revealed  much,  too,  in  relation  to  the  action  of  the  ice. 

"  1.  The  first  crack  was  nearly  at  right  angles  to  the 
axis  of  the  channel ;  the  subsequent  ones  crossed  the 
first ;  the  Wiud  being  in  the  one  case  from  the  west- 
ward, and  afterward  changing  to  the  southward. 

"  2.  The  next  subject  of  note  was  the  disintegration 
of  the  old  floes.  It  took  place  almost  invariably  at 
their  original  lines  of  junction,  well  marked  by  the 
hummocky  ridges.  This  shows  that  the  cementation 
was  imperfect  after  seventeen  days  of  very  low  tem- 
perature ;  a  circumstance  attributable,  perhaps,  to  the 


.'I 

it 

I  'I 


I: 


f 


I" 


,!'  ' 


'2  IS 


ICK-OPKNINO. 


:i    ., 


:i 


•I 


nuussivo  chMraclor  of  tlio  n|>-|)ilo(l  tablos,  which  pro- 
tcotiMJ  tho  innor  portion  of  tluMii  iVom  iho  air,  and  to 
(ln»  oonstant  inttltralion  {cfufoamo^ir)  of  salt-wator  at 
tiio  abradod  nuvr^inst. 

"W.  T\\o  oxt<»nito  which  tlic  work  ofsnpcr  and  in- 
(vii  |>osition  liad  been  carried  during  the  actions  may 
he  roaiizcil.  when  1  say  tluit  the  lloc-picco  whicli  sep- 
arated Troni  US  to  starh«)ard  relaineil  tiie  exact  iinpres- 
sit>n  t>r  the  ship's  side.  Tliere  it  wjws,  with  the  jjan^- 
way  stairs  ol'  ice-hl«)ck  nnusonry,  h)okin^  <K>wn  upon 
the  dark  water,  ant!  <he  nseh»ss  enihanknient  enihrac- 
injr  a  shid^fy  ice-pool. 

"We  could  see  tabU'  ailer  tahh».  more  properly  layer 
aOer  layer,  each  ni>t  more  than  seven  inches  thick,  ex- 
tendiujaf  down  for  more  than  twenty  I'eet.  Thus,  it  is 
hifjhly  pn>hahle,  may  he  lormeil  numy  of  those  enor- 
mous ice-tahles,  attributed  by  authors  to  direct  and 
uninterrupted  conptMation. 

'*  The  quantity  of  ice  adhering  to  our  port-side  must 
W  enormous  :  for  althoujjh  the  starboard  tloe,  in  leav- 
ing us,  parted  a  six-inch  hawser,  it  failed  to  bud^e  us 
one  inch  from  the  icy  cradle  in  which  we  are  set." 


niK  «i>VAN('R,  orr  i'kokkk'k  day. 


CUAPTKll  xxvir. 


TuRKi:  (lays  al'tor  this  entry  t!io  tlioriuoniotor  had 
falliMi  to  ir  holow  zoro.  Our  liousiiipfs  were  not  yot 
lix(Ml,  and  we  had  no  tiros  beh)w ;  inihunl,  our  position 
was  so  liable  to  momentary  and  violent  chaiifro  that 
it  would  ha.ve  been  impraetieablo  to  put  up  stoves. 
JStill,  our  lard-lamp  in  the  cabin  gave  us  a  tempera- 
ture of  +44" ;  and  so  oomplotely  were  our  systems  ac- 
commodated to  the  circui!istancos  in  which  wo  were, 
that  we  should  have  been  quite  satisfied  but  for  the 
condensed  moisture  that  dripped  from  every  thing 
about  us.  Our  conunander  had  allowed  me  to  place 
canvas  gutters  around  the  hatchways,  and  from  tliese 
we  emptieil  every  day  several  tin  cans  full  of  water, 
that  would  otherwise  have  been  added  to  the  slop  on 
our  cabin  floor.  But  the  state  of  things  was,  on  the 
whole,  exceedingly  comfortless,  and,  to  those  whom  the 
scurvy  had  attacked,  full  of  peril.  I  remember  once, 
when  the  lard-lamp  died  out  in  the  course  of  the  night, 
the  mercury  sunk  in  the  cabin  to  1(5°.  It  was  not  till 
the  19th  that  we  got  up  our  stoves. 

The  adaptation  of  the  human  system  to  varying 
temperatures  struck  me  at  this  time  with  great  force. 
I  had  passed  the  three  winters  before  within  the  trop- 
ics— the  last  on  the  plains  of  Mexico — yet  I  could  now 


;^ 


Ml  i;i 


'li 

I 


'% 


n':% 


220 


WELLINGTON    CHANNEL. 


watch  patiently  for  hours  together  to  get  a  shot  at 
seals,  with  the  thermometer  at  +10".  I  wrote  my 
journal  in  imaginary  comfort  with  a  temperature  of 
40°,  and  was  positively  distressed  with  heat  when  ex- 
ercising on  the  ice  with  the  mercury  at  +19°. 

I  return  to  my  diary. 

"  October  3.  I  write  at  midnight.  Leaving  the  deck, 
where  I  have  heen  tramping  the  cold  out  of  my  joints, 
I  come  helow  to  our  little  cabin.  As  I  open  the  hatch, 
every  thing  seems  bathed  in  dirty  milk.  A  cloud  of 
vapor  gushes  out  at  every  chink,  and,  as  the  cold  air 
travels  down,  it  is  seen  condensing  deeper  and  deeper. 
The  thermometer  above  is  at  7°  below  zero. 

"  The  brig  and  the  ice  around  her  are  covered  by  a 
strange  black  obscurity — not  a  mist,  nor  a  haze,  but  a 
peculiar,  waving,  palpable,  unnatural  darkness :  it  is 
the  frost-smoke  of  Arctic  winters.  Its  range  is  very 
low.  Climbing  to  the  yard-arm,  some  thirty  feet  above 
the  deck,  I  looked  over  a  great  horizon  of  black  smoke, 
and  above  me  saw  the  heaven  without  a  blemish. 

"  October  4.  The  open  pools  can  no  longer  be  called 
pools;  they  are  great  rivers,  whose  hummock-lined 
shores  look  dimly  through  the  haze.  Contrasted  with 
the  pure  white  snow,  their  waters  are  black  even  to 
inkyness ;  and  the  silent  tides,  undisturbed  by  ripple 
or  wash,  pass  beneath  a  pasty  film  of  constantly  form- 
ing ice.  The  thermometer  is  at  10".  Away  from  the 
ship,  a  long  way,  I  walked  over  the  older  ice  to  a 
spot  where  the  open  river  was  as  wide  as  the  Dela- 
ware. Here,  after  some  crevice-jumping  and  tichly- 
bender  crossing,  I  set  myself  behind  a  little  rampart 
of  hummocks,  watching  for  seals. 

"As  I  watched,  the  smoke,  the  frost-smoke,  came 
down  in  wreaths,  like  the  lambent  tongues  of  burning 


SEAL     HUNTING. 


221 


turpentine  seen  without  the  blaze.  I  was  soon  envel- 
oped in  crapy  mist. 

"  To  shoot  seal,  one  must  practice  the  Esquimaux 
tactics  of  much  patience  and  complete  immobility.  It 
is  no  fun,  I  assure  you  after  full  experience,  to  sit  mo- 
tionless and  noiseless  as  a  statue,  with  a  cold  iron 
musket  in  your  hands,  and  the  thermometer  10"  below 
zero.  But  by-and-by  I  was  rewarded  by  seeing  some 
ovei>^rown  Greenland  calves  come  within  shot.  I 
missed.  After  another  hour  of  cold  expectation,  they 
came  again.  Very  strange  are  these  seal.  A  coun- 
tenance between  the  dog  and  the  mild  African  ape — 
an  expression  so  like  that  of  humanity,  that  it  makes 
gun-murderers  hesitate.  At  last,  at  long  shot,  I  hit 
one.     God  forgive  me ! 

"  The  ball  did  not  kill  outright.  It  was  out  of  range, 
struck  too  low,  and  entered  the  lungs.  The  poor  beust 
had  risen  breast-high  out  of  water,  like  the  treading- 
water  swimmers  among  ourselves.  He  was  thus  sup- 
ported, looking  about  with  curious,  expectant  eyes, 
when  the  ball  entered  his  lungs. 

"  For  a  moment  he  oozed  a  little  bright  blood  from 
his  mouth,  and  looked  toward  me  with  a  sort  of  start- 
led reproachfulness.  Then  he  dipped ;  an  instant  aft- 
er, he  came  up  still  nearer,  looked  again,  bled  again, 
and  went  down.  A  half  instant  afterward,  he  came 
up  flurriedly,  looked  about  with  anguish  in  his  eyes, 
for  he  was  quite  near  me ;  but  slowly  he  sunk,  strug- 
gling feebly,  rose  again,  sunk  again,  struggled  a  very 
little  more.  The  thing  was  drowning  in  the  element 
of  his  sportive  revels.  He  did  drown  finally,  and  sunk ; 
and  so  I  lost  him. 

"Have  naturalists  ever  noticed  the  expression  of 
this  animal's  phiz  ?     Curiosity,  contentment,  pain,  re- 


222 


PARHELIA. 


••'"1(1! 


proach,  despair,  even  resignation  I  thought,  I  saw  on 
this  seal's  face. 

"About  half  an  hour  afterward,  I  killed  another. 
Scurvy  and  sea-life  craving  for  fresh  meat  led  me  to 
it ;  but  I  shot  him  dead. 

"  On  returning  to  the  ship,  I  found  one  toe  frost-bit- 
ten— a  tallow-looking  dead  man's  toe — which  was 
restored  to  its  original  ugly  vitality  by  snow-rubbing. 
Served  me  right ! 

"  Spent  the  afternoon  in  unsuccessful  seal  stalking, 
and  in  rigging  and  contriving  a  spring-gun  for  the  Arc- 
tic foxes :  a  blood-thirsty  day.  But  we  ate  of  fox  to- 
day for  dinner ;  and  behold,  and  it  was  good. 

"  October  5,  Saturday.  The  wind  evidently  freshens 
up.  The  day  has  been  bitterly  cold.  Although  our 
lowest  temperature  was  zero  and  — 1°,  we  felt  it  far 
more  than  the  low  temperature  of  yesterday.  Our 
maximum  was  as  high  as  4° ;  yet,  with  this,  it  required 
active  motion  on  deck  to  keep  one's  self  warm. 

"At  12h.  55m.,  we  had  an  interval  of  clear  sunshine* 
The  utmost,  however,  to  which  it  would  raise  one  of 
the  long  register  Smithsonian  thermometers  was  7°. 
The  air  was  filled  with  bright  particles  of  frozen  moist- 
ure,  which  glittered  in  the  sunshine — a  shimmering 
of  transparent  dust.* 

"  At  the  same  time,  we  had  a  second  exhibition  of 
parhelia,  not  so  vivid  in  prismatic  tints  as  that  of  the 
30th  of  September,  but  more  complete.  The  sun  was 
expanded  in  a  bright  glare  of  intensely- white  light, 
and  was  surrounded  by  two  distinct  concentric  circles, 
delicately  tinted  on.  their  inner  margins  with  the  red 
of  the  spectrum.    The  radius  of  the  inner,  as  measured 

*  Under  the  microscope  these  again  showed  obscure  modifications  of  the  hex- 
agon. 


ICE    CHANGES. 


223 


by  the  sextant,  was  22"  04' ;  that  of  the  outer,  40"  15'. 
The  lower  portions  of  both  were  beneath  the  horizon, 
and  of  course  not  seen. 

"  From  the  central  disk  proceeded  four  radii,  coin- 
cident with  the  vertical  and  the  horizontal  diameters 
of  the  circles. 

"  Their  visible  points  of  intersection  were  marked 
by  bright  parhelia ;  each  parhelion  having  its  circum- 
ference well  defined,  but  compressed  so  as  to  have  no 
resemblance  to  the  solar  disk. 

Six  of  these  were  visible  at  the  same  moment ;  those 
of  the  outer  circle  being  fainter  than  the  inner.  Touch- 
ing the  upper  circumference  of  this  outer  circle  was 
the  arc  of  a  third,  which  extended  toward  the  zenith. 
Indeed,  at  one  time  I  thought  I  saw  a  luminosity  over- 
head, which  may  have  corresponded  to  its  centre.  The 
tints  of  this  supplemental  circle  were  \  ery  bright.  The 
glowing  atmosphere  about  the  sun  was  very  striking. 

"  The  strange  openings  in  the  water  of  a  few  hours 
ago  are  now  great  rivers,  lined  by  banks  of  hummocks, 
and  wreathed  in  frost  smoke.  The  continually  in- 
creasing wind  from  the  northward  explains  this  south- 
ern drift  of  the  ice,  and  with  it  these  unwelcome  open- 
ings. We  are  stationary,  and  the  detached  ice  is  leav- 
ing us. 

"  The  strong  floe  of  ice-table  under  ice-table,  and 
hummock  upon  hummock,  makes  our  position  one  of 
nearly  complete  solidity.  We  are  glued  up  in  ice ; 
and  to  liberate  us,  some  fearful  disruption  must  take 
place.  Twenty- five  feet  of  solid  ice  is  no  feeble  ma- 
trix for  a  brig  drawing  but  ten.  Yet  the  water  is  wider, 
and  still  widening  around  us ;  so  that  now  we  hold 
on — that  is,  our  floe  holds  on,  to  the  great  mass  to  the 
north  of  us,  like  a  little  peninsular  cape. 


u 


It 


^ 


if 


224 


DRIFTING    SOUTH. 


"  To  the  south  every  thing  is  in  drifting  motion — 
water,  sludge,  frost-smoke — but  no  seals 

"  We  caught  a  poor  little  fox  to-day  in  a  dead-fall. 
We  ate  him  as  an  anti-scorbutic. 

"  October  6,  Sunday.  A  dismal  day ;  the  wind  howl- 
ing, and  the  snow,  fine  as  flour,  drifting  into  every 
chink  and  cranny.  The  cold  quite  a  nuisance,  al- 
though the  mercury  is  up  again  to  +6**.  It  is  blowing 
a  gale.  What  if  the  floe,  in  which  we  are  providen- 
tially glued,  should  take  it  into  its  head  to  break  off, 
and  carry  us  on  a  cruise  before  the  wind ! 

"  8  P.M.  Took  a  pole,  and  started  off" to  make  a  voy- 
age of  discovery  around  our  floe.  After  some  weary 
walking  over  hummocks,  and  some  uncomfortable  sous- 
ings in  the  snow-dust,  found  that  our  cape  has  dwin- 
dled to  an  isthmus.  In  the  midst  of  snow  and  haze, 
of  course,  I  did  not  venture  across  to  the  other  ice. 

"  We  look  now  anxiously  at  the  gale — turning  in, 
clothes  on,  so  as  to  be  ready  for  changes. 

"12  Midnight.  They  report  us  adrift.  Wind,  a 
gale  from  the  northward  and  westward.  An  odd  cruise 
this !  The  American  expedition  fast  in  a  lump  of  ice 
about  as  big  as  Washington  Square,  and  driving,  like 
the  shanty  on  a  raft,  before  a  bowling  gale. 

"  October  7,  Monday.  Going  on  deck  this  morning, 
a  new  coast  met  my  eyes.  Our  little  matrix  of  ice 
had  floated  at  least  twenty  miles  to  the  south  from 
yesterday's  anchorage.  The  gale  continues ;  but  the 
day  is  beautifully  clear,  and  we  have  neared  the  west- 
ern coast  enough  to  recognize  the  features  of  the  lime- 
stone cliffs,  although  many  a  wrinkle  of  them  is  now 
pearl-powdered  with  snow-drift. 

"  Prominent  among  these  was  Advance  Blaff";  and 
to  the  south  of  it,  a  great  indentation  in  the  limestone 


«i^<i! 


DRIFT WINTER. 


22^ 


escarpment,  which  ran  back  into  a  gray  distance — a 
sort  of  gorge,  with  a  summer  water-course.  Further 
off.  Point  Innes  again,  and  the  shingle  beach  of '  the 
Graves ;'  and  a  high  bluff-Uke  cape  or  headland  to  the 
southward  and  westward,  which  the  captain  supposes 
to  be  Barlow's  Inlet. 

"10  P.M.  Our  master  got  an  observation  this  even- 
ing of  a  Aquila  (circum-meridian  altitude),  giving  us 
a  latitude  of  74°  54'  07".  The  seat  of  our  late  resting- 
place  was  in  latitude  75°  24'  52"  N.  We  have  there- 
fore voyaged  30  miles  45  seconds  since  this  new  start. 
At  this  rate,  should  the  wind  continue,  another  day 
will  carry  us  again  into  Lancaster  Sound. 

^^  October  8.  Still  we  drift.  Barlow's  Inlet  is  near- 
ly abreast  of  us,  and  Cape  Hothain  seen  distinctly. 
The  broad,  unterminated  expanse  of  ice  to  the  south 
is  Lancaster  Sound,  sixty  miles  distant  when  we  first 
began  our  prisoner's  journey.     Thermometer  at  +8°. 

"  To-day  seemed  like  a  wave  of  the  handkerchief 
from  our  receding  summer.  Winter  is  in  every  thing. 
Yet  the  skies  came  back  to  us  with  warm  ochres  and 
pinks,  and  the  sun,  albeit  from  a  lowly  altitude,  shone 
out  in  full  brightness.  It  was  a  mockery  of  warmth, 
however,  scarcely  worthy  the  unpretending  sincerity 
of  the  great  planet ;  for  the  mercury,  exposed  to  the 
full  radiance  of  his  deceitful  glare,  rose  but  two  de- 
grees: from  +7°  to  9°.  In  spite  of  this,  the  day  was 
beautiful  to  remember,  as  a  type  of  the  sort  of  thing 
which  we  once  shared  with  the  world  from  which  we 
are  shut  out ;  a  parting  picture,  to  think  about  during 
the  long  night.  These  dark  days,  or  rather  the  dark 
day,  will  soon  be  on  us.  The  noon  shadows  of  our 
long  masts  almost  lose  themselves  in  the  distance. 

"  A  little  white  fox  was  caught  alive  in  a  trap  this 

P 


i 


p. 


i 

i 


\»,M 


•■'■l!(/ 


;"■!:!" 


'"J 
'1 


ii 


226 


OUR    FOX. 


morning.  He  was  an  astute-visaged  little  scamp ;  and 
although  the  chains  of  captivity,  made  of  spun-yarn 
and  leather,  set  hardly  upon  him,  he  could  spare 
abundant  leisure  for  bear  bones  and  snow.  He  would 
drink  no  water.  His  cry  resembled  the  inter-parox- 
ysmal yell  of  a  very  small  boy  undergoing  spanking. 
The  note  came  with  an  impulsive  vehemence,  that 
expressed  not  only  fear  and  pain,  but  a  very  tolerable 
spice  of  anger  and  ill-temper." 

He  was  soon  reconciled,  however.  The  very  next 
day  he  was  tame  enough  to  feed  from  the  hand,  and 
had  lost  all  that  startled  wildness  of  look  which  is  sup- 
posed  to  characterize  his  tribe.  He  was  evidently  un- 
used to  man,  and  without  the  educated  instinct  of 
flight.  Twice,  when  suffered  to  escape  from  the  ves- 
sel, he  was  caught  in  our  traps  the  same  night.  In- 
deed, the  white  foxes  of  this  region — we  caught  more 
than  thirty  of  them — seemed  to  look  at  us  with  more 
curiosity  than  fear.  They  would  come  directly  to  the 
ship's  side ;  and,  though  startled  at  first  when  we  fired 
at  them,  soon  came  back.  They  even  suffered  us  to 
approach  them  almost  within  reach  of  the  hand,  ran 
around  us,  as  we  gave  the  halloo,  in  a  narrow  circle, 
but  stopped  as  soon  as  we  were  still,  and  stared  us  in- 
quisitively in  the  face.  One  little  fellow,  when  we  let 
him  loose  on  the  ice  after  keeping  him  prisoner  for  a 
day  or  two,  scampered  back  again  incontinently  to  his 
cubby-hole  on  the  deck.  There  may  be  matter  of  re- 
flection for  the  naturalist  in  this.  Has  this  animal 
no  natural  enemy  but  famine  and  cold  ?  The  foxes 
ceased  to  visit  us  soon  after  this,  owing  probably  to 
the  uncertain  ice  between  us  and  the  shore :  they  are 
shrewd  ice-masters. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

We  remained  during  the  rest  of  this  nonth  ice-era- 
died,  and  drifting  about  near  the  outlet  of  Wellington 
Channel.  Occasionally  a  strong  southerly  wind  would 
set  us  back  again  to  the  north,  as  far,  perhaps,  as  Bar- 
low's Inlet ;  but  it  was  soon  apparent  that  the  greater 
compactness  of  the  barrier  that  had  come  down  after 
us,  and  the  force  of  some  unknown  current,  were  re- 
sisting our  progress  in  that  direction.  A  northerly 
wind,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed  to  have  no  counter- 
acting influences.  A  little  while  after  it  began  to 
blow,  open  leads  would  present  themselves  under  our 
lee,  and  the  floe  which  imbedded  us  moved  gradually 
and  without  conflict  through  them  toward  the  south. 
Our  thoughts  turned  irresistibly  to  the  broad  expanse 
of  Lancaster  Sound,  which  lay  wild  and  rugged  be- 
fore us,  and  to  the  increasing  probability  that  it  was 
to  be  our  field  of  trial  during  the  long,  dark  winter — 
perhaps  our  final  home. 

With  this  feeling  came  an  increasing  desire  to  com- 
municate with  our  late  associates  of  Union  Bay.  I 
had  volunteered  some  weeks  before  to  make  this  trav- 
erse, and  had  busied  myself  with  arrangements  to  car- 
ry it  out.  The  Rescue's  India-rubber  boat  was  to  car- 
ry the  party  through  the  leads,  and,  once  at  the  shore, 
three  men  were  to  press  on  with  a  light  tent  and  a 
few  days'  provisions.  The  project,  impracticable  per- 
haps from  the  first,  was  foiled  for  a  time  by  a  vexa- 
tious incident.  I  had  made  my  tent  of  thin  cotton 
cloth,  so  that  it  weighed,  when  completed,  but  four- 


t 


M   S 


1 

i 

4 

'i 

1 

•  r  ■ 

•  iiii 

1 

y 

'•It 

f 

■"'r 

.■■» 

1 

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i 

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i 

k} 


f 


:  I 


228 


SHORE    INACCESSIBLE. 


teen  pounds,  soaking  it  thoroughly  in  a  composition 
of  caoutchouc,  ether,  and  linseed  oil,  the  last  in  quan- 
tity. After  it  was  finished  and  nearly  dried,  I  wrap- 
ped it  up  in  a  dry  covering  of  coarse  muslin,  and  placed 
it  for  the  night  in  a  locked  closet,  at  some  distance 
from  the  cook's  galley,  where  the  temperature  was  be- 
tween 80°  and  90°.  In  the  morning  it  was  destroyed. 
The  wrapper  was  there,  retaining  its  form,  and  not 
discolored ;  but  the  outer  folds  of  the  tent  were  smok- 
ing ;  and,  as  I  unrolled  it,  fold  after  fold  showed  more 
and  more  marks  of  combustion,  till  at  the  centre  it 
was  absolutely  charred.  There  was  neither  flame  nor 
spark. 

In  a  few  days  more  the  tumult  of  the  ice-fields  had 
made  all  chance  of  reaching  the  shore  hopeless.  But 
the  mean  time  was  not  passed  without  efforts. 

*^  October  23.  I  started  with  a  couple  of  men  on  an- 
other attempt  to  reach  the  shore.  After  five  miles  of 
walking,  with  recurring  alternations  of  climbing,  leap- 
ing, rolling,  and  soaking,  we  found  that  the  ice  had 
driven  out  from  the  coast,  and  a  black  lane  of  open 
water  stopped  our  progress.  This  is  the  seventh  at- 
tempt to  cross  the  ice,  all  meeting  with  failure  from 
the  same  cause.  The  motion  of  ice,  influenced  by 
winds,  tides,  and  currents,  keeps  constantly  abrading 
the  shore-line.  Any  outward  drift,  of  course,  makes 
an  irregular  lane  of  water,  which  a  single  night  con- 
verts into  ice  ;  the  returning  floes  heap  this  in  tables 
one  over  another  ;  and  the  next  outward  set  carries  oflf 
the  floes  again,  crowned  with  their  new  increment. 

"  The  haze  gathered  around  us  about  an  hour  after 
starting,  and  the  hummocks  were  so  covered  with  snow 
that  the  chasms  often  received  us  middle  deep.  We 
walked  five  hours  and  a  half,  making  in  all  but  eleven 


i^ 


AN    ICE    TRAMP. 


229 


miles ;  and  even  then  were  at  least  a  mile  from  the 
heach. 

"  At  9ne  portion  of  our  route,  the  ice  had  the  crushed 
sugar  character ;  the  lumps  varying  in  size  from  a 
small  cantaloupe  to  a  water-melon,  but  hard  as  frozen 
water  at  zero  ought  to  be.  Over  this  stuflf  we  walked 
in  tiptoe  style — and  a  very  miserable  style  it  was. 

"  At  another  place,  for  a  mile  and  a  half,  we  trod  on 
the  fractured  angles  of  upturned  ice.  Call  these  curb- 
stones ;  toss  them  in  mad  confusion,  always  taking  care 
that  their  edges  shall  be  uppermost ;  dust  them  over 
with  flour  cooled  down  to  zero ;  and  set  a  poor  wretch 
loose,  in  the  centre  of  a  misty  circle,  whose  curtailed 
horizon  bristles  with  new  torments  ! 

"At  another  place,  break-water  stones,  great  quarried 
masses  of  ice,  let  you  up  and  down,  but  down  oftener 
than  up.  At  another  time,  you  travel  over  rounded 
dunes  of  old  seasoned  hummock,  covered  with  slippery 
glaze.  Again,  it  is  over  snow,  recent  and  soft,  or  snow, 
recent  and  sufficiently  crusty  to  bear  you  five  paces 
and  let  you  through  the  sixth — a  trial  alike  to  temper 
and  legs. 

"At  last,  to  crown  the  delicice  of  our  Arctic  walk, 
we  come  to  a  long  meadow  of  recent  ice,  just  enough 
covered  with  snow  to  keep  you  from  slipping,  and  just 
thin  enough  to  make  it  elastic  as  a  Polka  floor.  Over 
this,  with  a  fine  bracing  air,  every  nerve  tingling  with 
the  exercise,  and  the  hoary  rime  whitening  your  beard, 
you  walk  with  a  delightful  sense  of  ease  and  enjoy- 
ment. 

"  One  of  my  attendants  had  both  ears  frost-bitten ; 
the  whole  external  cartilage  (Pinna)  was  of  tallow, 
jaundiced.  Snow-rubbing  set  him  right.  I  have  or- 
dered the  men  to  take  ear-rings  from  their  ears.    Wil- 


fll 


i 

f 

ll*,.ji, 

1 

,  ii'i, 

i ,  ■ 
1  ■' . 

1 

1 1 

<'^> . 

ir;.,., 

.."it,(, 

■'\. 
'II' 

',    -  ml 

1 
■    'if 

1'^ 

230 


WINTERY    SIGNS. 


son,  a  Livournese,  rejoiced  in  a  couple  of  barbaric 
pendules,  doubtless  of  bad  gold,  but  good  conducting 
power." 

The  indications  of  winter  were  still  becoming  more 
and  more  marked.  On  the  11th,  the  sun  rose  but  9° 
at  meridian;  on  the  15th  but  6°;  and  on  the  7th  of  No- 
vember, at  the  same  hour,  it  almost  rested  on  the  ho- 
rizon. The  daylight,  however,  was  sometimes  strange- 
ly beautiful.  One  day  in  particular,  the  8th,  a  rosy 
tint  diffused  itself  over  every  thing,  shaded  off  a  little 
at  the  zenith,  but  passing  down  from  pink  ii  violet, 
and  from  violet  to  an  opalescent  purple,  that  banded 
the  entire  horizon. 

The  moon  made  its  appearance  on  the  13th  of  Oc- 
tober. At  first  it  was  like  a  bonfire,  warming  up  the 
ice  with  a  red  glare ;  but  afterward,  on  the  15th,  when 
it  rose  to  the  height  of  4°,  it  silvered  the  hummocks 
and  frozen  leads,  and  gave  a  softened  lustre  to  the 
snow,  through  which  our  two  little  brigs  stood  out  in 
black  and  solitary  contrast.  The  stars  seemed  to  have 
lost  their  twinkle,  and  to  shine  with  concentrated 
brightness  as  if  through  gimlet-holes  in  the  cobalt  can- 
opy. The  frost-smoke  scarcely  left  the  field  of  view. 
It  generally  hung  in  wreaths  around  the  horizon ;  but 
it  sometimes  took  eccentric  forms ;  and  one  night,  I 
remember,  it  piled  itself  into  a  column  at  the  west,  and 
Aquila  flamed  above  it  like  a  tall  beacon-light.  We 
were  glad  to  note  these  fanc'.iul  resemblances  to  the 
aspects  of  a  more  kindly  region ;  they  withdrew  us 
sometimes  from  the  sullen  realities  of  the  world  that 
encompassed  us — ice,  frost-s.noke,  and  a  threatening 
sky. 

We  had  parhelia  again  more  than  once,  but  devel- 
oped imperfectly ;  a  mass  of  incand.3scence  22°  from 


^-     --^^ 


WINTERY    SIGNS. 


231 


the  sun,  with  prismatic  coloring,  but  without  the  cir- 
cular and  radial  appearances  that  had  characterized  it 
before. .  On  the  27  th,  a  partial  paraselene  was  visible, 
the  first  we  observed — merely  the  limbs  of  two  broken 
arcs,  destitute  of  prismatic  tint,  stretching  like  circum- 
flexes at  about  23°  distance  on  each  side  the  moon; 
the  moon  about  20°  high,  thermometer  —10°,  barom- 
eter 30°  55',  atmosphere  hazy.  The  sky  clearing  short- 
ly afterward,  it  shone  out  with  increased  beauty  for  a 
while,  but  died  away  as  the  haze  disappeared. 

The  thermometer  was  now  generally  below  the  zero 
point,  sometimes  rising  for  a  little  while  about  noon  a 
few  degrees  above  it,  once  only  as  high  as  + 13°.  When 
there  was  no  wind,  even  the  lowest  of  its  range  was 
quite  bearable  ;  and  while  we  were  exercising  active- 
ly, it  was  difficult  to  believe  that  our  sensations  could 
be  so  strikingly  in  contrast  with  the  absolute  temper- 
ature. But  a  breeze,  or  a  pause  of  motion  till  we 
could  raise  the  sextant  to  a  star  or  make  out  some 
changing  phasis  of  the  ice-field,  never  failed  to  per- 
suade us,  and  that  feelingly,  that  the  mercury  was 
honest.  Night  after  night  the  bed-clothes  froze  at  our 
feet ;  and  a  poor  copy  of  the  New  York  Herald,  that  lay 
at  the  head  of  the  captain's  bunk,  was  glazed  with  ice. 

^^November  8.  Tempted  by  the  over-arching  beauty 
of  the  sky,  I  started  off  this  morning  with  Captain  De 
Haven  on  a  walk  of  inspection  shoreward.  The  open 
water,  frozen  since  October  2d,  is  now  nearly  two  feet 
thick,  and  at  this  low  temperature  (—15°)  it  becomes 
hard  and  brittle  as  glass.  Wherever  the  nipping  has 
caught  two  of  the  floes,  they  have  been  driven  with  a 
force  inconceivable  one  above  the  other,  rising  and 
falling  until  they  now  form  a  ridge  fifteen  or  twenty 
feet  high. 


m 


■•'!J' 


232 


WINTER    ARRANGEMENTS. 


!    '» 


J  '•! 


"  The  tension  of  the  great  field  of  ice  over  which  we 
passed  must  have  been  enormous.  It  had  a  sensible 
curvature.  On  striking  the  surface  with  a  walking- 
pole,  loud  reports  issued  like  a  pistol-shot,  and  lines  of 
fissure  radiated  from  the  point  of  impact.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  blow  of  an  axe  would  sever  the  keystone,  and 
break  up  by  a  shock  the  entire  expanse.  In  one  place 
the  ice  suddenly  arched  up  like  a  bow  while  we  were 
looking  at  it,  burst  into  fragments,  collapsed  at  the  ex- 
terior margins  of  fracture,  and  by  the  work  of  a  mo- 
ment created  a  long  barrier  line  of  ruins  ten  feet  high. 
Our  position  was  one  of  peril.  We  had  crossed  two 
miles  of  ice.  A  change  of  tide  relieved  the  strain,  and 
we  returned. 

"  The  nearest  break-up  to  our  homestead  floe  is 
about  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  off.  It  is  now  to 
the  south ;  though  our  position,  constantly  changing, 
alters  the  bearing  by  the  hour.  Very  many  of  the 
masses  that  compose  it  are  as  large  as  the  grapery  at 
home,  two  hundred  feet  long  perhaps,  and  lifted  up, 
barricade-fashion,  as  high  as  our  second  story  win- 
dows." 

The  next  day  our  winter  arrangements  were  com- 
pleted. They  were  simple  enough,  and  hardly  worth 
describing  in  detail.  A  housing  of  thick  felt  was 
drawn  completely  over  the  deck,  resting  on  a  sort  of 
ridge-pole  running  fore  and  aft,  and  coming  down  close 
at  the  sides.  The  rime  and  snow-drift  in  an  hour  or 
two  made  it  nearly  impervious  to  the  weather.  The 
cook's  galley  stood  on  the  kelson,  under  the  main 
hatch ;  its  stove-pipe  rising  through  the  housing  above, 
and  its  funnel-shaped  apparatus  for  melting  snow  at- 
tached below.  The  bulkheads  between  cabin  and 
forecastle  had  been  removed ;  and  two  stoves,  one  at 


''■'nil. 


SAND-STORMS    OF    THE    SAHARA. 


233 


ve, 

at- 

Ind 

at 


each  end  of  the  berth-deck,  distributed  their  heat 
among  officers  and  seamen  alike.  We  had  of  course 
a  community  of  all  manner  of  odors  ;  and  as  our  only 
direct  ventilation  was  by  the  gangway,  we  had  the 
certainty  of  a  sufficient  diversity  of  temperatures. 


The  e:  iption  from  gales,  that  has  attracted  the 
notice  of  other  travelers  in  this  region,  had  not  yet 
been  confirmed  by  our  experience.  On  the  contrary, 
our  approach  to  Lancaster  Sound,  and  the  earlier  part 
of  our  drift  after  we  entered  it,  were  marked  by  fre- 
quent storms.  Some  of  these  had  all  the  sublimity 
that  could  belong  to  a  mingled  sense  of  danger  and 
discomfort.  They  reminded  me  of  the  sand-storms  of 
the  Sahara.  "  The  fine  particles  of  snow  flew  by  us 
in  a  continuous  stream.  When  they  met  the  unpro- 
tected face,  the  sensation  was  like  the  puncture  of  nee- 
dles. Standing  under  the  lee  of  our  brig,  and  watch- 
ing the  drift  as  it  scudded  on  the  wings  of  the  storm 
through  the  interval  between  the  two  vessels,  the  lines 


I 


'■■•>f 


i  U 


r  i 


m 


n 


> 

>\  ■ 

'  i 

t,^„. 

; 

im 

m 

1 

1 

1 

' 

1 

\m 

'l];;uMiS|» 

234 


THE  CHANNEL  AND  THE  SOUND. 


of  sweeping  snow  were  so  unbroken  that  its  filaments 
seemed  woven  into  a  mysterious  tissue.  Objects  fifty 
yards  off"  were  invisible :  no  one  could  leave  the  ves- 
sels." 

The  month  of  November  found  us  oscillating  still 
with  the  winds  and  currents  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Beechy  Island.     Helpless  as  we  were  among  the  float- 
ing masses,  we  began  to  look  upon  the  floe  that  car- 
ried us  as  a  protecting  barrier  against  the  approaches 
of  others  less  friendly ;  and  as  the  month  advanced, 
and  the  chances  increased  of  our  passing  into  the 
sound,  our  apprehensions  of  being  frozen  up  in  the 
heart  of  the  ice-pack  gave  place  to  the  opposite  fear 
of  a  continuous  drift.     We  had  seen  enough,  and  en- 
countered enough  of  the  angry  strife  among  the  ice- 
floes in  the  channel,  to  assure  us  of  disaster  if  we 
should  be  forced  to  mingle  in  the  sterner  conflicts  of 
the  older  ice-fields  of  the  sound.     Yet,  as  the  new 
fields  continued  forming  about  us,  thickening  gradu- 
ally from  inches  to  feet,  and  locking  together  the  floes 
in  one  great  amorphous  expanse,  we  retained  a  hope 
to  the  last  that  our  island  floe,  thickening  like  the  rest, 
and  piling  its  wall  of  hummocks  around  us,  would 
continue  to  ward  us  from  attack,  till  the  all-pervading 
frost  had  made  it  a  stationary  part  of  the  great  winter 
covering  of  the  Arctic  Sea.     It  encountered  almost 
daily  immense  hummocks,  son.?e  of  them  impinging 
against  us  while  we  were  apparently  at  rest;  some,  ap- 
parently motionless,  receiving  the  impact  from  us.    At 
such  times  our  floe  would  be  deflected  at  an  angle 
from  its  normal  course,  or  would  rotate  slowly  round 
its  centre,  and  pass  on — not,  however,  always  in  the 
same  direction ;  sometimes  nearing  the  western  shore, 
sometimes  closing  in  upon  the  beach  of  "the  Graves," 


LEOPOLD   S     ISLAND. 


235 


and  sometimes  fluctuating^  slowly  to  the  northward. 
The  chart  opposite  page  12  will  show  the  capricious 
nature  of  this  drift. 

But  our  general  course  was  toward  the  south  and 
east.  On  the  17th  we  were  fairly  in  the  sound.  It 
welcomed  us  coldly.  The  mercury  stood  for  a  while 
at  —19°,  and  sunk  during  the  night  to  —27°. 

The  next  day,  however,  a  shift  of  wind,  gradually 
increasing  in  force,  combined  with  a  tidal  influence  to 
drive  us  back  to  our  old  position.  The  thermometer 
was  at  this  time  lower  than  we  had  ever  seen  it,  and 
the  sky  seemed  to  sympathize  with  the  temperature. 
The  moon  had  a  solid  look,  resting  upon  the  snow- 
hills  of  Cape  Riley,  like  a  great  viscid  globe  of  illu- 
mination. In  the  morning  the  sky  combined  all  the 
tints  of  the  spectrum  in  regular  zones,  a  broad  band  of 
orange  girding  the  horizon  with  an  almost  uniform  in- 
tensity of  color.  The  stars  shone  during  the  entire 
day.  At  daybreak  on  the  18th,  Leopold's  Island  rose 
by  refraction  above  the  ice,  standing  with  its  unmis- 
takable outline  clearly  black  against  the  orange  sky ; 
but  it  went  down  as  the  sun  neared  the  horizon,  and 
passed  to  the  south  of  his  low  circuit.  My  journal  for 
the  next  two  days  shows  the  degree  of  illumination  at 
the  different  hours. 

"  November  20,  Wednesday.  The  winds  are  unlike 
those  encountered  by  Parry,  our  only  predecessor  in 
this  region  at  this  season  of  the  year.  It  has  been 
very  providential,  and  very  unexpected  for  us,  this  pre- 
dominance of  breezes  from  the  southward  and  east- 
ward. It  has  prevented  our  drifting  into  the  dreaded 
sound,  there  to  be  carried,  if  it  pleased  Fortune,  into 
Baffin's  Bay  by  the  easterly  current. 

"We  had  a  heavy  gale  from  2  P.M.  of  yesterday 


■  >   I 


a, 


lil 


4      '    ^ 


!f! 


■'f''\ ■<! 


:'- <:lli 


i:  iir 


ill 


236 


THE    DAYLIGHT. 


(19th)  until  this  morning  at  9  A.M.,  hauling  round 
from  southeast  to  east-southeast.  After  this  last  hour, 
it  gradually  died  away;  and  now,  at  3  P.M.,  we  have 
a  gentle  breeze  from  the  same  quarter.  The  wind  has 
left  the  north  since  the  18th. 

"Our  temperature,  which  on  the  18th  gave  us  —27°, 
the  lowest  we  have  yet  recorded,  was  at  the  close  of 
the  next  day  but  —6° ;  and  to-day  its  extreme  was  —4°. 
Now,  by  gradual  elevation,  it  has  reached  zero. 

"  Zero  once  more,  and  a  positive  sensation  of  warmth ! 
There  was  no  wind ;  and  the  haze  vapors  so  softened 
this  once  greatest  cold,  that  I  walked  about  with  bare 
hands  and  sweating  body. 

"The  daylight  is  hardly  now  worthy  of  the  name, 
according  to  the  Philadelphia  notions  of  the  blessing; 
but  to  us  it  is  the  last  leaf  of  the  sibyl.  Here  is  a  lit- 
tle record  of  its  incomings  and  outgoings. 

"  9  A.M.  Breakfast  over ;  furs  on  ;  deck  covered  in 
with  black  felt,  the  frozen  condensation  patching  it 
with  large  white  wafers  of  snow.  A  lai/^eru  makes  it 
barely  light  enough  to  walk.  No  red  streak  to  the 
east :  one  misty  haze  of  visible  darkness. 

"10  A.M.  A  twilight  gloom:  can  just  see  the  Azi- 
mutli,  with  its  tripod  stand,  thirty  yards  off  on  the  ice. 
Snow  whirling  in  drifts. 

"11  A.M.  Can  read  newspaper  print  by  going  to 
open  daylight,  i.  e.,  twilight — the  twilight  of  a  foggy 
sunrise  at  home. 

"12  M.  Noonday.  A  streak  of  brown  red  looms  up 
above  the  mist  to  the  south.  Save  a  little  more  light 
from  the  'foggy  sunrise'  of  11  A.M.,  no  great  percep- 
tible difference ;  yet  I  can  now  read  the  finest  print 
easily. 

"  1  P.M.  Very  decidedly  more  hazy  than  at  11,  the 


THE    DAYLIGHT. 


237 


1 


corresponding  hour  before  meridian.  Can  read  with 
difficulty  the  newspaper — London  Illustrated  News. 

"  2  P.M.  A  hazy  darkness,  but  so  compounded  with 
the  fast-rising  light  of  the  dear  moon,  that  it  is  far 
lighter  than  the  corresponding  hour  before  meridian. 

"  Day  is  over.     Moonlight  begins  ! 

"  This  is  a  fair  specimen  of  our  usual  day.  The  oc- 
casional clear  day,  such  as  we  had  the  18th,  is  far  light- 
er, and  full  of  variety  and  interest. 

"  November  21,  Thursday.  The  day  is  clear ;  but  the 
moonlight,  an  absolute  clair  de  lune,  so  confounds  it- 
self  with  the  day  as  to  make  a  merely  solar  register 
impossible.  — -' 

"  8  A.M.  The  whole  atmosphere  bathed  in  pellucid 
clearness.  The  moon,  like  a  luminous  sphere,  not  a 
circle,  as  with  us,  is  away  up  the  straits  in  the  north- 
ern sky.     Not  a  speck  betokens  sunrise. 

"  9  A.M.  The  southeastern  horizon  is  zoned  with  a 
mellow  uniform  band  of  light.  Nothing  we  have  seen 
has  its  extension  or  its  uniformity.  The  visual  angle 
is  an  unbroken  tint,  rising  from  the  ice  with  a  raw 
sienna,  mellowmg  into  pink,  and  softened  again  into 
an  orange  yellow,  which  runs  sometimes  through  a 
gradation  of  green  into  the  clear  blue  sky.  The  moon 
absorbs  all  perception  of  other  light. 

"10  A.M.  The  light  of  dawn  begins  to  mingle  with 
the  moonlight ;  I  can  not  say  where  or  how,  out  I  am 
conscious  of  an  interfering  light.  To  the  southward 
all  is  orange,  and  red,  and  solar.  To  the  northward, 
from  a  cobalt  sky  of  even  tint,  the  moon  '  shineth  down 
alone' — alone,  save  the  bright  planet  Saturn  to  the 
northward,  and  the  broad  zone  of  red  sunrise  at  the 
south. 

"11  A.M.  Day  upon  us  on  one  side,  and  moon  bright 


238 


MOONLIGHT. 


on  the  other :  moonlight  and  sunlight  hlend  overhead. 
To  the  north  and  south,  each  keeps  its  separate  do- 
minion.    I  read  the  finest  print  readily. 

"  12  M.  Walked  out  to  see  the  ice.  I  have  no  change 
of  words  left  to  describe  noonday.  The  sunlight  zone 
of  color  was  more  light  and  less  bright,  perhaps — and 
the  moon  was  more  bright  and  less  light,  perhaps ;  but 
both  were  there. 

"  1  P.M.  The  light  hardly  dimmed ;  but  the  moon 
shines  out  so  emulously,  that  it  is  hard  to  measure  the 
sunlight. 

"  2  P.M.  It  is  evidently  no  longer  day,  although  the 
southwestern  horizon  is  flared  with  red  streaks,  and  a 
softening  of  yellow  into  the  blue  of  heaven  says  that 
the  sun  is  somewhera  below  it.  The  moon  has  con- 
fused the  day ;  and  coming  as  she  does  at  this  com- 
mencement of  our  long  night,  I  bless  her  for  the  grate- 
ful service.  I  make  my  four  to  six  hours  of  daily 
walk,  and  hardly  miss  the  guidance  of  day. 

"3P.M.  Moonlight!!" 


•:<  i,i 


'mimk 


?i ,  ■  i' 


|:   I. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

^^ November  22.  I  walked  yesterday,  and  to-day  again, 
to  the  open  water  that  separates  us  from  Welling^ton 
Channel.  It  is  a  hold  and  rapid  river,  as  hroad  as  the 
Delaware  at  Trenton  or  the  Schuylkill  at  Philadelphia, 
rolling  wildly  hetween  dislocated  hummock  crags,  and 
whirling  along  in  its  black  current  the  abraded  frag- 
ments of  its  shores.  Ice  of  recent  growth  had  cement- 
ed the  gnarled  masses  about  its  margin  into  a  ragged 
wall  some  twenty  feet  high,  and  perhaps  thirty  paces 
wide.  I  stood  with  perfect  safety  on  a  tall,  spire-like 
pinnacle,  and  endeavored  to  trace  its  course.  It  could 
be  seen  reaching  from  a  remote  point  in  the  southeast- 
ern part  of  the  channel,  and  is  probably  connected  with 
the  open  shore  leads  that  stretch  from  Cape  Riley  past 
Cape  Spencer  toward  the  further  coasts  of  North  Dev- 
on. It  passed  about  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  north- 
west of  our  vessels,  and  was  lost  in  the  distant  ice- 
fields to  the  east. 

"Returning  with  Captain  De  Haven,  we  saw  the 
recent  prints  of  a  bear  and  two  cubs,  that  had  evident- 
ly been  scenting  our  foot-marks  of  the  day  before.  The 
old  bear  was  not  large,  measuring  by  her  trail  only  six 
feet  four  inches  ;  the  young  ones  so  small  as  to  sur- 
prise us,  their  track  not  much  bigger  than  that  of  a 
Newfoundland  dog.  At  what  breeding  season  were 
these  Cubs  produced  ? 

"  I  have  been  for  some  evenings  giving  lectures  on 
topics  of  popular  science,  the  atmosphere,  the  barom- 
eter, &c.,  to  the  crew.     They  aie  not  a  very  intellect- 


\n 


'  i 


:  i:, 


M. ' ' 


d-  t' 


240 


LANCASTER    SOUND. 


m 


•i 


¥* 


It 

1*1  il 


I 


It 


HI 


i;  ii 


ual  audience,  but  they  listen  with  apparent  interest, 
and  c'vpiess  themselves  gratefully. 

"November  25.  Great  clouds  of  dark  vapor  were  seen 
to  the  southward  to-day,  the  crape-wreaths  of  our  first 
imprisonment.  This  frost-smoke  is  an  unfailing  indi- 
cation of  open  water,  and  to  us,  poor  prison-bound  va- 
grants, is  suggestive  of  things  not  pleasant  to  think 
about.     It  streamed  away  on  the  wind  in  black  driits. 

"Our  daylight  to-day  was  a  mere  name,  three  and 
a  half  hours  of  meagre  twilight.  I  was  struck  for  the 
first  time  with  the  bleached  faces  of  my  mess-mates. 
The  sun  left  us  finally  only  sixteen  days  ago  ;  but  for 
some  time  before  he  had  been  very  chary  of  his  effect- 
ive rays ;  and  our  abiding-place  below  has  a  smoky 
atmosphere  of  lamplit  uncomfortableness.  No  wonder 
we  grow  pale  with  such  a  cosmetic.  Seventy-seven 
days  more  without  a  sunrise !  twenty-six  before  we 
reach  the  solstitial  point  of  greatest  darkness  ! 

"  The  temperature  continues  singularly  mild.  Par- 
ry, at  Melville  Island,  had  —47°  before  this,  twenty  de- 
grees lower  than  our  minimum  ;  and  even  in  the  more 
southern  regions  of  Port  Bowen  and  Prince  Regent's 
Straits,  the  cold  was  much  greater.  For  some  days 
now,  zero  has  not  been  an  uncommon  temperature; 
and  to-day  we  are  in  —14°,  here  far  from  unpleasantly 
cold.  May  not  much  of  this  moderated  intensity  of 
the  weather  be  referred  to  the  influence  of  the  open 
water  around  us  ? 

"We  are  still  in  our  old  neighborhood,  at  the  brink 
of  the  channel,  a  mile  or  so  from  Cape  Riley,  and  both 
shores  in  view. 

"November  28.  The  sunlight,  a  mere  band  of  red 
cloud ;  the  day,  a  poor  apology.  Walked  eastward 
toward  Beechy  Island,  dimly  seen.     The  ice  river  ie 


h  •  • 


jlilli 


ICE     TOPOGRAPHY. 


rink 
)oth 

red 
rard 


241 


toward 


clogged  with  ground  masses  of  granular  ice 
the  south  it  is  more  open. 

"The  wind  to-day  is  getting  stronger  from  the  west, 
with  some  northing,  of  all  winds  the  most  to  be  feared  : 
the  north  drives  us  into  Lancaster ;  the  west  comes  in 
aid  of  the  current  to  keep  us  there,  and  speed  us  back 
toward  Baffin. 

"Our  thermometer  does  not  fall  below  —11°.  The 
frost-smoke  is  all  around  us  in  bistre-colored  vapor. 
Can  it  be  that  we  are  again  detached,  our  floe  independ- 
ent altogether  of  the  field  ?  We  have  heard  noises  of 
grinding  ice,  distant,  but  bodingly  distinct. 

"  In  my  walks  for  some  days  past,  I  have  been  study- 
ing the  topography  of  our  ice-island  residence.  Here 
are  my  elements : 

"1.  To  the  north ;  over  broken  ice  and  edge-hum- 
mocks ^  that  is  to  say,  hummocks  formed  at  the  margin 
of  floes  and  afterward  cemented  there,  all  of  this  sea- 
son's growth.  Several  large  masses,  resembling  berg- 
ice  ;  one,  the  largest,  twenty-seven  feet  high.  The 
water-lead  margined  by  rude  hummocky  crags  trend- 
ing to  the  westward  and  southward  from  the  south- 
ward and  eastward,  forming  a  rude,  broken  horseshoe. 
Distance  to  water,  one  mile. 

"  2.  To  the  south ;  over  long  floes  of  recent  ice,  young 
snow-covered,  and  smooth,  with  few  indications  of 
heavy  pressure  at  their  junctions.  Distance  to  open 
water,  glazed  over  with  young  ice,  two  miles  :  trend 
of  this  lead  east  and  west.  The  diameter  of  the  floe, 
north  and  south,  is  three  miles  from  water  to  water. 

"o.  To  the  east,  i.  c,  northeast  by  east;  rough, 
mix<  d  ice,  with  lines  of  recent  heavy  hummocks. 
Thickness  of  ice,  averaging  four  feet  to  five  feet  eight 
inches  ;  ice  of  the  early  part  of  last  August,     Distance 

Q 


■J:^ 


'■''i'i'l:,  ■! 


t        -r 


?? 


r^ 


'i    I 


:|  I' 


[fj  ) 


..iiii 


•"«|il 


;■'  I' 


■•"(  ; 


■'     ■« 


I 


•jl 


■!:'■* 


Kll 


■i'f:i 


..^ii| 


242 


LANCASTER    SOUND. 


to  open  river,  one  and  three  fourths  to  two  miles. 
Marks  of  recent  action  excessive  here  ;  hummock 
banks  massive ;  and  tables  sometimes  five  feet  thick, 
rising  to  a  height  of  eighteen  feet.  From  the  east  and 
northeast,  the  trend  of  the  break  is  to  the  southward 
at  first,  and  some  two  miles  below  to  the  westward. 

"  4.  To  the  west ;  over  the  broken  region  of  varied 
ice,  traveled  over  in  my  attempts  to  reach  Barlow's 
Inlet  some  days  ago.  Distance  to  lead,  one  mile. 
Chasm  very  irregular ;  but  from  the  point  I  visited  at 
the  north  and  east,  trending  nearly  due  west,  and 
pointing  to  the  southward  of  Cape  Hotham. 

"From  all  this  it  is  clear  enough  that  we  are  a  mov- 
ing floe,  comparatively  isolated.  The  only  point  of 
our  circumscribed  horizon  I  have  not  visited,  and  where 
no  frost-smoke  asserts  the  near  proximity  of  water,  is 
the  northwest.  Whether  on  that  side  the  ice  of  Lan- 
caster is  blocked  against  us  by  the  easterly  current,  or 
whether  the  frost  has  made  our  floe  one  more  speck 
in  the  massive  field,  is  the  only  question  remaining. 

^^  November  29.  The  doubt  is  gone.  Our  floe,  ice- 
cradle,  safeguard,  has  been  thrown  round.  Its  eastern 
margin  is  grinding  its  way  to  the  northward,  and  the 
west  is  already  pointing  to  the  south.  Our  bow  is  to 
Baflin's  Bay,  and  we  are  traveling  toward  it.  So  far, 
ours  has  been  a  mysterious  journeying.  For  two 
months  and  more,  not  a  sail  has  fluttered  from  our 
frozen  spars ;  yet  we  have  passed  from  Lancaster 
Sound  into  the  highest  latitude  of  Wellington  Chan- 
nel, one  never  attained  before,  and  have  been  borne 
back  again  past  our  point  of  starting,  along  a  capri- 
ciously varied  line  of  drift.  Cape  Riley  is  bearing,  by 
compass,  S.  \  E.,  N.N.E  ^  E.  (true) ;  and  Beechy  Head, 
by  compass,  S.E.  i  E.,  IN.  i  E.  (true).     Cape  Hurd  is 


I'll 


LANCASTER     SOUND. 


243 


visible  to  the  northward  and  eastward,  and  to  the  east 
are  the  ice-clogged  waters  of  Lancaster  Sound. 
-  "  November  30.  When  I  came  on  deck  this  morning, 
the  lanterns  were  burning  at  ten  o'clock,  and  the  south- 
ern sky  had  not  even  a  trace  of  red.  Our  head  had 
slewed  rather  more  to  the  southward ;  and  off  on  our 
starboard  beam  sundry  dark  lines  on  the  ice  had  a 
suspicious  look.  I  walked  toward  them  with  some  of 
our  officers.  After  sundry  groping  tumbles,  we  came, 
sure  enough,  upon  open  water,  one  hundred  yards  to 
the  south  of  the  brig.  Returning  on  our  track,  and 
taking  a  new  departure  toward  the  east — open  water 
again.  Off  to  the  dim,  hazy  north — still  open  water. 
Off  to  the  hummocky  west,  feeling  our  way  with  walk- 
ing-poles— open  water  all  round  us.  Once  more,  then, 
we  are  launched  on  a  little  ice-island,  to  float  wher- 
ever God's  mercy  may  guide  us. 

"  The  India-rubber  boat  inflated,  and  a  few  clothes 
stowed  away,  ready  for  a  sudden  break  out ;  and  all 
hands  turn  in  for  the  night. 

^^  December  1.  There  was  a  rude  murmur  in  the 
night,  that  mingled  its  tones  of  admonition  with  the 
wind.  But  we  are  habituated  pretty  thoroughly  to 
sounds  of  this  sort,  and  they  have  ceased  to  disturb 
us.  Walking  after  breakfast  toward  the  northeast,  to 
an  ice-quarry,  from  which  we  have  obtained  our  fresh 
water  of  late,  we  found  that  a  water-crack  we  observed 
yesterday  had  undergone  severe  pressure  during  the 
night,  and  that  the  action  was  still  going  on.  A  Jow, 
hazy  twilight  just  allowed  us  to  distinguish  near  ob- 
jects. A  level,  snow-covered  surface  was  rising  up  in 
inclined  planes  or  rudely  undulating  curves.  These, 
breaking  at  their  summits,  fell  off  on  each  side  in 
masses  of  twenty  tons'  weight.     Tables  of  six  feet  in 


'•'^m 


y'c 


244 


ICE    BREAKING    UP. 


thickness  by  twenty  of  perpendicular  height,  and  some 
of  them  fifteen  yards  in  length,  surging  up  into  the 
misty  air,  heaving,  rolling,  tottering,  and  falling  with 
a  majestic  deliberation  worthy  of  the  forces  that  im- 
pelled them.  When  a  huge  block  would  rise  verti- 
cally, tremble  for  a  moment,  and  topple  over,  you  heard 
the  heavy  sough  of  the  snow-padding  that  received  it ; 
but  this  was  only  the  deep  bass  accompaniment  to  a 
wild,  yet  not  unmusical  chorus.  I  can  not  attempt  to 
describe  the  sounds.  There  was  the  ringing  clatter 
of  ice,  made  friable  by  the  intense  cold  and  crumbling 
under  lateral  force ;  the  low  whine  which  the  ice  gives 
out  when  we  cut  it  at  right  angles  with  a  sharp  knife, 
rising  sometimes  into  a  shriek,  or  sinking  to  the  plaint- 
ive outcry  of  our  night-hawk  at  home ;  the  whirr  of 
rapidly-urged  machinery ;  the  hum  of  multitudes :  and 
all  these  mingled  with  tones  that  have  no  analogy 
among  the  familiar  ones  of  unad venturous  life. 

"  So  slowly  and  regularly  did  these  masses  roll,  rise, 
break,  and  fall,  that,  standing  upon  a  broad  table,  ice- 
pole  in  air,  we  rolled  when  it  rolled,  rose  when  it  rose, 
balanced  when  it  broke,  and  jumped  as  it  fell.  What 
would  our  quiet  people  in  brick  houses  say  to  such  a 
ride  ?     Temperature  at  30°  below  zero. 

"  On  deck ;  looming  up  in  the  very  midst  of  the 
haze,  land !  so  high  and  close  on  our  port  beam,  that 
we  felt  like  men  under  a  precipice.  We  could  see 
the  vertical  crevices  in  the  limestone,  the  recesses  con- 
trasting in  black  shadow.  What  land  is  this  ?  Is  it 
the  eastern  line  of  Cape  Riley,  or  have  we  reached 
Cape  Ricketts  ? 

"  There  is  one  thing  tolerably  certain  :  the  Grinnell 
expedition  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  searched  for  here- 
after as  to  search.  Poor  Sir  John  Franklin !  this  night- 
drift  is  an  ugly  omen. 


'"Ill*"  I, 


the 

I  that 

see 

con- 
llsit 
Iched 

mell 

lere- 

light- 


THE    AURORA. 


245 


"  Do  you  remember,  in  the  Spanish  coasting  craft, 
down  about  Barcelona  and  the  Balearics,  the  queer 
little  pictures  of  Saint  Nicholas  we  used  to  see  pasted 
up  over  the  locker — a  sort  of  mythic  effigy,  which  the 
owner  looked  upon  pretty  much  as  some  of  our  old 
commodores  do  the  barometer,  a  mysterious  some- 
thing, which  he  sneers  at  in  fair  weather,  but  is  sure, 
in  the  strong  faith  of  ignorance,  to  appeal  to  in  foul ! 
Well,  very  much  such  a  Saint  Anthony  have  we  down 
in  the  cabin  here,  staring  us  always  in  the  face.  Not 
a  vermilion-daubed  puerility,  with  a  glory  in  Dutch 
leaf  stretching  from  ear  to  ear ;  but  a  good,  genuine, 
hearty  representative  of  English  flesh  and  blood,  a 
mouth  that  speaks  of  strong  energies  as  well  as  a 
kindly  heart,  and  an  eye — the  other  one  is  spoiled  in 
the  lithography — that  looks  stern  will.  Many  a  time 
in  the  night  have  I  discoursed  with  him.,  as  he  looked 
out  on  me  from  his  gutta  percha  frame — '  Sir  John 
Franklin ;  presented  by  his  wife ;'  and  sometimes  I 
have  imagined  how  and  where  I  was  yet  to  shake  the 
glorious  old  voyager  by  the  hand.  I  see  him  now 
while  I  am  writing ;  his  face  is  darkened  by  the  lamp- 
smoke  that  serves  us  for  daylight  and  air,  and  he  seems 
almost  disheartened.  So  far  as  help  and  hope  of  it 
are  afloat  in  this  little  vessel.  Sir  John,  well  you  may 
be ! 

"It  is  Sunday:  we  have  had  religious  service  as 
usual,  and  after  it  that  relic  of  effete  absurdity,  the 
reading  of  the  '  Rules  and  Regulations.' 

"We  had  the  aurora  about  7  P.M.  The  thermom- 
eter at  —38°  and  falling ;  barometc  ,  Aneroid,  30°  74^ ; 
attached  thermometer,  86°.  Wind  steady,  W.N.W. 
The  meteor  resembled  an  illuminated  cloud  ;  illumin- 
ated, because  seen  against  the  deep  blue  night  sky ; 


y"m 


3  »fl 


ii 

H 


>a 


246 


THE     AURORA. 


''M:, 


otherwise  it  resembled  the  mackerel  fleeces  and  mare's 
tails  of  our  summer  skies  at  home. 

"It  began  toward  the  northwestern  horizon  as  an 
irregular  flaring  cloud,  sometimes  sweeping  out  into 
wreaths  of  stratus  ;  sometimes  a  condensed  opaline 
nebulosity,  rising  in  a  zone  of  clearly-defined  white- 
ness, from  3°  to  5°  in  breadth  up  to  the  zenith,  and 
then  arching  to  the  opposite  horizon.  This  zone  re- 
sembled more  a  long  line  of  white  cirro-stratus  than 
the  auroral  light  of  the  systematic  descriptions.  There 
was  no  approach  to  coruscations,  or  even  rectangular 
deviations  from  the  axis  of  the  zone.  When  it  varied 
from  a  right  line,  its  curvatures  were  waving  and  ir- 
regular, such  as  might  be  produced  by  w^ind,  but  hav- 
ing no  relation  to  the  observed  air-currents  at  the 
earth's  surface.  It  passed  from  the  due  northwest,  be- 
tween the  Pleiades  and  the  Corona  Borealis ;  the  star 
of  greatest  magnitude  in  the  latter  of  these  constella- 
tions remaining  in  the  centre,  although  its  waving 
curves  sometimes  reached  the  Pleiades.  At  the  zenith, 
its  mean  distance  from  the  Polar  Star  was  7°  south, 
and  it  passed  down,  increasing  in  intensity,  near  Vega, 
in  Lyra,  to  the  southeast. 

"  There  was  throughout  the  arc  no  marked  seat  of 
greatest  intensity.  Around  the  Corona  of  the  north, 
its  light  was  more  diffused.  The  zone  appeared  nar- 
rowed at  the  zenith,  and  bright  and  clear,  without 
marked  intermission,  to  the  southeast.  The  frost- 
smoke  was  in  smoky  banks  to  the  northwest ;  but  the 
aurora  did  not  seem  to  be  affected  by  it,  and  the  com- 
pass remained  constant. 

^^  December  2.  Drifting  down  the  sound.  Every 
thing  getting  ready  for  the  chance  of  a  hurried  good- 
by  to  our  vessels.     Pork,  and  sugar,  and  bread  put  up 


<m\f: 


A    BREAK-UP. 


247 


in  small  bags  to  fling  on  the  ice.  Every  man  his 
knapsack  and  change  of  clothing.  Arms,  bear-knives, 
ammunition  out  on  deck,  and  sledges  loaded.  Yet 
this  thermometer,  at  —30",  tells  us  to  stick  to  the  ship 
while  we  can. 

"  This  packing  up  of  one's  carpet-bag  in  a  hurry  re- 
quires a  mighty  discreet  memory.  I  have  often  won- 
dered that  seamen  in  pushing  off  I'rom  a  wreck  left  so 
many  little  wants  unprovided  for ;  but  I  think  I  un- 
derstand it  now.  After  bestowing  away  my  boots, 
with  the  rest  of  a  walking  wardrobe,  in  a  snugly- 
lashed  bundle,  I  discovered  by  accident  that  I  had  left 
my  stockings  behind. 

"4  P.M.  Brooks  comes  down  while  we  are  dining 
to  say  we  are  driving  east  like  a  race-horse,  and  a 
crack  ahead :  '  All  hands  on  deck !'  We  had  heard 
the  grindings  last  night,  and  our  floe  in  the  morning 
was  cut  down  to  a  diameter  of  three  hundred  yards : 
we  had  little  to  spare  of  it.  But  the  new  chasm  is 
there,  already  fifteen  feet  wide,  and  about  twenty-five 
paces  from  our  bows,  stretching  across  at  right  angles 
with  the  old  cleft  of  October  the  2d. 

"  Our  floe,  released  from  its  more  bulky  portion,  seems 
to  be  making  rapidly  toward  the  shore.  This,  how- 
ever, may  be  owing  to  the  separated  mass  having 
ar.  opposite  motion,  for  the  darkness  is  intense.  Our 
largest  snow-house  is  carried  away ;  the  disconsolate 
littlv^  cupola,  with  its  flag  of  red  bunting,  should  it  sur- 
vive the  winter,  may  puzzle  conjectures  for  our  En- 
glish brethren. 

"  Mr.  Gritfin  and  myself  walked  through  the  gloom 
to  the  seat  of  hummock  action  abeam  of  the  Rescue. 
A  dark,  hard  walk :  no  changes.  The  crack,  noticed 
some  time  ago  as  parallel  to  and  alongside  of  the  Res- 


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LANCASTER    SOUND. 


cue,  has  not  opened.  Her  officers  have  brought  their 
private  papers  on  board  the  Advance,  and  such  indis- 
pensable articles  as  may  be  needed  in  case  of  her  de- 
struction. 

"  Our  ship's  head  is  toward  a  point  of  land  to  the 
northeastward,  but  her  position  changes  so  constantly 
that  there  is  little  use  of  recording  it.  Caught  a  fox 
this  morning  ;  have  now  two  on  board. 

"  Our  bearings,  taken  by  azimuth  compass  this  morn- 
ing at  eleven,  gave  Cape  Hurd,  S.  by  W.  i  W. ;  West- 
ern Bluff,  of  Rigsby's  Inlet,  S.E.  i  S.;  Table-hill  of 
Parry,  S.E.  by  S.  i  S.;  Cape  Ricketts,  E.  by  N. 

"Wind  changed  at  9  P.M.  to  N.N.W. ;  thermom- 
eter,  minimum,  -26°;  maximum,  -22°;  mean,  23° 
82^ 

^^  December  4,  Wednesday.  This  morning  showed  us 
an  interval  of  over  two  hundred  yaids  already  covered 
with  stiff  ice :  so  much  for  our  chasm  of  last  night ! 
All  around  us  is  a  moving  wreck  of  ice-fields. 

"  Our  drift  seems  to  have  been  to  the  westward.  We 
have  certainly  left  the  coast,  which  yesterday  seemed 
almost  over  us,  though  it  is  still  too  near  for  good  fel- 
lowship. 

"  This  is  the  first  clear  day — ^truly  clear,  that  we 
have  had  since  my  record  of  the  changing  daylight. 
Compared  with  the  gloomy  haziness  of  its  predeces- 
sors, it  was  cheering.  The  southern  horizon  was  a 
zone  of  red  light ;  and  although  the  clear  blue  soon 
absorbed  it,  we  could  read  small  print  with  a  little  ef- 
fort  at  noonday  by  turning  the  book  to  the  south.  The 
stars  were  visible  all  the  time,  except  where  the  hori- 
zon was  lighted  up." 

The  next  four  days  were  full  of  excitement  and 
anxiety.     One  crack  after  another  passed  across  our 


CRISIS. 


249 


floe,  still  reducing  its  dimensions,  and  at  one  time 
bringing  down  our  vessel  again  to  an  even  keel.  An 
hour  afterward,  the  chasms  would  close  around  us  with 
a  sound  like  escaping  steam.  Again  they  would  open 
under  some  mysterious  influence  ;  a  field  of  ice  from 
two  to  four  inches  thick  would  cover  them ;  and  then, 
without  an  apparent  change  of  causes,  the  separated 
sides  would  come  together  with  an  explosion  like  a 
mortar,  craunching  the  newly-formed  field,  and  driving 
it  headlong  in  fragments  for  fifty  feet  upon  the  floe  till 
it  piled  against  our  bulwarks.  Every  thing  betokened 
a  crisis.  Sledges,  boats,  packages  of  all  sorts,  were  dis- 
posed in  order ;  contingencies  were  met  as  they  ap- 
proached by  new  delegations  of  duty ;  every  man  was 
at  work,  oflicer  and  seaman  alike  ;  for  necessity,  when 
it  spares  no  one,  is  essentially  democratic,  even  on  ship- 
board. The  Rescue,  crippled  and  thrown  away  from 
us  to  the  further  side  of  a  chasm,  was  deserted,  and 
her  company  consolidated  with  ours.  Our  own  brig 
groaned  and  quivered  under  the  pressure  against  her 
sides.     I  give  my  diary  for  December  7. 

"December  7,  Saturday.  The  danger  which  sur- 
rounds us  is  so  immediate,  that  in  the  bustle  of  prep- 
aration for  emergency  I  could  not  spend  a  moment 
upon  my  journal.  Now  the  little  knapsack  is  made 
up  again,  and  the  blanket  sewed  and  strapped.  The 
little  home  Bible  at  hand,  and  the  ice-clothes  ready 
for  a  jump. 


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250 


CRISIS. 


Dee.  6. 


Dec. 


"  The  above  is  a  rough  idea  of  our  hist  three  days' 
positions  and  changes. 

"  From  this  it  is  evident  that  a  gradual  process  of 
breaking  up  has  taken  place.     We  are  afloat. 

"  The  ice,  as  I  have  sketched  it,  December  7,  began 
to  close  at  11  A.M.,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  brig 
was  driven  toward  the  open  crack  of  December  4  (c). 
At  1  P.M.  this  closed  on  us  with  fearful  nipping. 

"  1  P.M.  llan  on  deck.  The  ice  was  comparatively 
quiescent  when  I  attempted  to  write ;  but  it  recom- 
menced with  a  steady  pressure,  which  must  soon  prove 
irresistible.  It  catches  against  a  protruding  tongue 
forward,  and  is  again  temporarily  arrested. 

"4  P.M.  Up  from  dinner— 'all  hands!'  The  ice 
came  in,  with  the  momentum  before  mentioned  as  *  ir- 
resistible,' progressive  and  grand.  All  expected  to  be- 
take ourselves  sledgeless  to  the  ice,  for  the  open  space 
around  the  vessel  barely  admits  of  a  foot-board.  The 
timbers,  and  even  cross-beams  protected  by  shores,  vi- 
brated  so  as  to  communicate  to  you  the  peculiar  tremor 
of  a  cotton-factory.  Presently  the  stern  of  the  brig, 
by  a  succession  of  jerking  leaps,  began  to  rise,  while 
her  bows  dipped  toward  the  last  night's  ice  ahead. 
Every  body  looked  to  see  her  fall  upon  her  beam-ends, 
and  rushed  out  upon  the  ice.  After  a  few  anxious 
breath-compressed  moments,  our  nobly-strengthened 
little  craft  rose  up  upon  the  encroaching  floes  bodily. 


•■If 


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11! 


ANECDOTE. 


251 


Her  dolphin-striker  struck  the  ice  ahead ;  her  hows  he- 
gan  to  feel  the  pressure ;  and  thus  lifted  up  upon  the 
solid  tahles,  we  have  a  temporary  respite  again. 

"  Stores  are  now  put  out  upon  the  ice,  and  we  await 
— time.  Cape  Fellfoot,  S.  by  W.  i  W.  Remarkable 
perpendicular  bluff,  S.S.E.  Cape  Hurd,  E.N.E.  i  E., 
by  compass ;  Cape  Hurd,  N.W.  by  W.  i  W.  (true). 

"  We  are  at  least  fifty  miles  from  Beechy  Island  and 
Union  Bay — about  forty-five  miles  from  Leopold  Har- 
bor stores.  Leopold  Harbor,  or  our  more  distant  En- 
glish friends,  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  off, 
are  our  only  places  of  refuge.  We  are  daily,  hourly, 
drifting  further  from  both.  It  is  this  nakednetss  of 
resources,  even  more  than  perpetual  darkness  and 
unendurable  cold,  that  makes  our  position  one  of 
bitterness.  Drift  a  little  westward;  thermometer, 
17°." 

My  journal  does  not  tell  the  story ;  but  it  is  worth 
noting,  as  it  illustrates  the  sedative  eflect  of  a  protract- 
ed succession  of  hazards.  Our  brig  had  just  mounted 
the  floe,  and  as  we  stood  on  the  ice  watching  her  vi- 
bration, it  seemed  so  certain  that  she  must  come  over 
on  her  beam-ends,  that  our  old  boatswain.  Brooks, 
called  out  to  "  stand  from  under."  At  this  moment 
it  occurred  to  one  of  the  officers  that  the  fires  had  not 
been  put  out,  and  that  the  stores  remaining  on  board 
would  be  burned  by  the  falling  of  the  stoves.  Swing- 
ing himself  back  to  the  deck,  and  rushing  below,  he 
found  two  persons  in  the  cabin ;  the  officer  who  had 
been  relieved  from  watch-duty  a  few  minutes  before, 
quietly  seated  at  the  mess-table,  and  the  steward  as 
quietly  waiting  on  him.  "  You  are  a  meal  ahead  of 
me,"  he  said ;  "  you  didn't  think  I  was  going  out  upon 
the  ice  without  my  dinner." 


I 

1 


262 


LANCASTER    SOUND. 


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"  December  8,  Sunday,  8  P.M.  This  has  thus  far  been 
a  day  of  rest.  Our  vessel,  lifted  up  upon  the  heavy 
ice,  has  borne  without  injury  a  few  fresh  pressures. 
The  wind  has  been  still  from  the  eastward,  and  we 
have  drifted  about  six  r:iiles  to  the  westward  again. 
This  wind  was  almost  a  gale ;  yet  its  influence  upon 
the  eastern  drift  is  barely  able  to  produce  this  limited 
westing.  I  now  regard  it  as  past  a  doubt,  that  should 
we  survive  the  collisions  of  the  journey,  we  must  float 
into  Baffin's  Bay. 

"A  small  auroral  light  was  seen  to  the  northwest 
at  9  A.M.,  the  second  within  two  days.  Its  axis  was 
16°  W.  of  the  magnetic  meridian.  The  mean  tem- 
perature of  the  day  has  been  -12*^  70".  Wind  more 
gentle  from  the  eastward. 

"Mr.  Griflin,  who  is  now  the  executive  officer  of  our 
consolidated  squadron,  has  undertaken  a  systematic 
drill  of  the  crew.     He  has  mustered  them  for  an  ice- 
march,  with  knapsacks  fitted  to  their  backs,  and  sledge 
equipments,  just  such  as  will  be  required  when  the 
worst  comes.     Every  thing  is  rigorously  inspected 
the  provisions  and  stores  of  all  sorts  are  packed  snug 
and  have  their  places  marked ;  and  the  men  are  in 
structed  as  to  their  course  in  the  moment  of  emerg 
ency. 


'•  Here  is  a  sketch  of  the  present  position  of  our  ves- 
sel .    It  looks  extravagant,  but  it  is  in  truth  the  very  op- 


't '?'  '  >i 


LANCASTE  R   SOUND. 


253 


posite.     Evey  thing  like  locomotion  on  board  is  up 
and  down  hill. 

"  December  9,  Monday.  Like  its  three  predecessors, 
clear ;  that  is  to  say,  for  three  scanty  hours  of  scanty 
twilight,  you  see  the  skeleton  shore  cliffs,  and  the 
bright  stars,  a  little  paled,  but  bright.  The  moon,  a 
second-quarter  crescent,  was  for  a  while  on  the  north- 
ern and  western  horizon,  distorted  and  flaming  like  a 
crimson  lamp. 

"  Last  night,  mounted  as  we  are,  the  nipping  caused 
our  timbers  to  complain  sadly.  We  had  to  send  out 
parties  to  crow-bar  away  the  ice  from  our  bowsprit. 
The  bob-slays  were  forced  up  and  broken.  Our  floe 
movement  continued  to  the  southeast,  driving  the 
heavy  ice  in  upon  the  Rescue.  She  rose  up  under  the 
pressure,  and  is  now  surrounded  by  hummock  ruins 
like  ourselves.  She  is  not  more  than  fifty  yards  dis- 
tant from  us,  astern." 

From  this  time  to  the  21st  our  drift  was  without  in- 
termission. As  one  headland  after  another  defined  it- 
self against  the  horizon,  it  was  apparent  that  we  were 
skirting  the  northern  coast  of  the  sound.  At  first  this 
gave  us  some  anxiety,  when  our  floe,  pressing  hard 
against  the  shore-ice  as  we  doubled  some  projecting 
point,  threatened  to  wreck  us  among  its  fragments. 
But  as  we  drew  nearer  to  the  outlet,  and  began  to  com- 
pute the  new  hazards  of  entering  Baffin's  Bay,  this 
very  circumstance  became  for  us  an  important  ground 
of  hope.  Theory,  as  well  as  the  accounts  of  the  whal- 
ers, made  the  southeastern  cape  of  Lancaster  Sound 
the  seat  of  intense  hummock  action.  The  greater  the 
distance  from  that  point,  the  broader  must  be  the  curv- 
ature of  the  meeting  currents,  and  the  less  perilous  the 
conflict  of  the  ice-masses  in  their  rotation.    There  was, 


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254 


LANCASTER    SOUND. 


of  course,  no  escape  for  us  from  this  encounter ;  and 
the  only  question  was  of  the  degrees  of  hazard  it  must 
involve. 

On  the  19th,  the  tall,  mural  precipices  to  the  north- 
ward, and  the  cape  in  which  they  terminated  toward 
the  east,  convinced  us  that  we  had  almost  reached  the 
western  headland  of  Croker's  Bay.  We  had  drifted  one 
hundred  and  eleven  miles  since  the  beginning  of  the 
month.  Our  course  had  been  without  any  cheering 
incident.  There  was  the  same  wretched  succession 
of  openings  and  closings  about  our  floe,  somewhat  dan- 
gerous, but  too  uniform  to  be  exciting ;  and  we  had 
drilled  with  knapsack  and  sledge,  till  we  were  almost 
martinets  in  our  evolutions  on  the  ice.  I  group  the 
few  entries  of  my  journal  that  have  any  interest. 

"  December  11.  Wind  last  night  fierce  from  the  north ; 
to-day  as  fierce  from  the  west.  It  has  carried  us  clear 
of  the  great  cape  that  stretches  out  east  of  Maxwell's 
Bay,  and  that  threatened  us  with  the  variety  of  a  lee 
shore.  The  Rescue  has  had  another  trial :  her  stern- 
post  is  carried  away,  her  pintle  and  gudgeon  wrenched 
ofl*.  A  party  of  officers  and  men  are  out,  trying  the  ex- 
periment of  a  night  upon  the  ice,  tented  and  bag-bed- 
ded. I  wish  them  luck ;  but  the  thermometer  fifty- 
seven  degrees  below  freezing  is  unfavorable  to  a  fete 
ckampetre. 

^^  December  12.  Every  thing  solid,  and  looking  as  if 
it  had  always  been  so ;  yet,  a  few  days  ago,  I  had  this 
journal  of  mine  stitched  up  in  its  tarred  canvas-bag, 
and  ready  for  a  fling  upon  the  ice  four  times  in  the 
twenty-four  hours.  The  floes  have  stopped  abrading 
each  other,  and  are  driving  ahead  right  peaceably,  with 
our  brig  mounted  on  top :  how  far  we  are  from  the 
edges,  it  is  too  dark  to  see. 


LANCASTER    SOUND, 


255 


*^  December  13.  A  little  clearer  than  yesterday,  but 
too  dark  to  read  small  print  at  noon.  Something  like 
a  long  reach  of  land  looming  up  to  southward :  it  can 
not  be  Croker's  Bay  ? 

"All  our  mess  took  our  tour  of  practice  to-day,  with 
a  sledge  and  four  hundred  pounds  of  provender.  Hard 
work,  and  sweating  abundantly ;  but  we  feel  already 
the  good  effects  of  this  sort  of  exercise.  Thermometer 
at  -11°. 

"  December  14.  A  quiet  day ;  the  winds  at  rest,  and 
the  stars  twinkling  through  the  hazy  sky  as  I  never 
saw  them  before.  The  moon,  too,  is  in  high  heaven, 
almost  a  three-quarter  disk.  She  is  a  great  comfort 
to  us ;  her  high  northern  declination  makes  her  visible 
all  the  time.  It  looks  strangely  this  undying  fortnight 
moon.  The  frost-smoke  is  wreathing  the  red  zone  of 
our  southern  horizon.  It  would  be  a  good  night-scene 
for  a  painter. 

"At  7  P.M.  the  thermometer  rose  from  -3°  to  -1°. 
At  10  o'clock  it  was  -4°.  Its  maximum  was  + 10*^,  a 
temperature  mild  and  comfortable.  The  wind  changed 
from  west  by  south  to  west  by  north,  and  the  ice  and 
the  drift  are  as  yesterday. 

"  A  poor  bear,  fired  at  last  night  by  Mr.  Carter,  was 
found  this  morning,  about  three  hundred  yards  fron. 
the  ship,  dead.  He  was  wedged  between  two  slabs 
of  ice,  and  in  his  agony  had  rubbed  his  muzzle  deep 
into  the  frozen  snow.  Twice  he  had  stopped  to  lie 
down  during  his  death- walk,  marking  each  place  with 
a  large  puddle  of  blood,  which  branched  out  over  the 
floe  like  crimson-streaked  marble.  He  measured  eight 
feet  four  inches  from  tip  to  tip.  I  killed  a  fox ;  but 
missing  his  head,  opened  the  large  arteries  of  the  neck, 
and  spoiled  his  pelt.     The  temperature  at  the  orifice 


■'.* 


.=i/i 


I 

i 


:».,. 


256 


LANCASTER     SOUND. 


,11  .I*;.!  ] 


of  the  ball  was  H-92°.  The  crew  were  at  work  till 
eleven,  leveling  our  rugged  floe,  and  heaping  up  snow 
against  the  sides  of  the  brig.  The  position  of  our  ves- 
sel, high  perched  in  air,  and  dipping  head  foremost  in 
a  way  most  Arctic  and  uncomfortable,  makes  the  pro- 
tection of  snow  very  desirable.  We  feel  the  cold  against 
her  walls.  The  crew  had  an  hour  of  sledging,  as  well 
by  way  of  exercise  as  of  preparation  for  their  expected 
trials. 

"A  point  supposed  to  be  Cape  Crawfurd  bore,  by 
compass,  west.     Our  distance  from  the  north  shore  is  , 
about  five  miles." 


>  A       mil 


>.  *' 


il 


n  .ix-: « 


,..-^^ 


ARCTIC   HOOD. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

I  EMPLOYED  the  dreary  intervals  of  leisure  that  her- 
alded our  Christmas  in  tracing  some  Flemish  portrait- 
ures of  things  about  me.  The  scenes  themselves  had 
interest  at  the  time  for  the  parties  who  figured  in  them ; 
and  I  believe  that  is  reason  enough,  according  to  the 
practice  of  modern  academics,  for  submitting  them  to 
the  public  eye.  I  copy  them  from  my  scrap-book,  ex- 
purgating  only  a  little. 

"  We  have  almost  reached  the  solstice ;  and  things 
are  so  quiet  that  I  may  as  well,  before  I  forget  it,  tell 
you  something  about  the  cold  in  its  sensible  effects, 
and  the  way  in  which  as  sensible  people  we  met  it. 

"  You  will  see,  by  turning  to  the  early  part  of  my 
journal,  that  the  season  we  now  look  back  upon  as 
the  perfection  of  summer  contrast  to  this  outrageous 
winter  was  in  fact  no  summer  at  all.  We  had  the 
young  ice  forming  round  us  in  Baffin's  Bay,  and  were 
measuring  snow-falls,  while  you  were  sweating  under 
your  grass-cloth.  Yet  I  remember  it  as  a  time  of  sun- 
ny recreation,  when  we  shot  bears  upon  the  floes,  and 

R 


'■■n 


258 


THE    COLD. 


1, 


I 


were  scrambling  merrily  over  glaciers  and  murdering 
rotges  in  the  bright  glare  of  our  day-midnight.  Like 
a  complaining  brute,  I  thought  it  cold  then — I,  who 
am  blistered  if  I  touch  a  brass  button  or  a  ramrod 
without  a  woolen  mit. 

"  The  ox)ld  came  upon  us  gradually.  The  first  thing 
that  really  struck  me  was  the  freezing  up  of  our  wa- 
ter-casks, the  drip-candle  appearance  of  the  bung-holes, 
and  our  inability  to  lay  the  tin  cup  down  for  a  five- 
minutes'  pause  without  having  its  contents  made  solid. 
Next  came  the  complete  inability  to  obtain  drink  with- 
out manufacturing  it.  For  a  long  time  we  had  col- 
lected our  water  from  the  beautiful  fresh  pools  of  the 
icebergs  and  floes ;  now  we  had  to  quarry  out  the 
blocks  in  flinty,  glassy  lumps,  and  then  melt  it  in  tins 
for  our  daily  drink.    This  was  in  Wellington  Channel. 

"By-and-by  the  sludge  which  we  passed  through  as 
we  traveled  became  pancakes  and  snow-balls.  We 
were  glued  up.  Yet,  even  as  late  as  the  11th  of  Sep- 
tember, I  collected  a  flowering  Potentilla  from  Bar- 
low's Inlet.  But  now  any  thing  moist  or  wet  began 
to  strike  me  as  something  to  be  looked  at — a  curious, 
out-of-the-way  production,  like  the  bits  of  broken  ice 
round  a  can  of  mint-julep.  Our  decks  became  dry, 
and  studded  with  botryoidal  lumps  of  dirty  foot-trod- 
den ice.  The  rigging  had  nightly  accumulations  of 
rime,  and  we  learned  to  be  careful  about  coiled  ropes 
and  iron  work.  On  the  4th  of  October  we  had  a  mean 
temperature  below  zero. 

"  By  this  time  our  little  entering  hatchway  had  be- 
come so  complete  a  mass  of  icicles,  that  we  had  to  give 
it  up,  and  resort  to  our  winter  door- way.  The  opening 
of  a  door  was  now  the  signal  for  a  gush  of  smoke-like 
vapor :  every  stove-pipe  sent  out  clouds  of  purple  steam ; 


FROZEN    STORES. 


259 


ring 
Like 
who 
nrod 

^hing 

r  wa- 

tioles, 

,  five- 
solid. 

with- 

,d  col- 

ofthe 

at  the 

in  tins 

lannel. 

ugh  as 
We 
f  Sep. 
Bar- 
began 

lurious, 
:en  ice 
le  dry, 

ht-trod- 
lons  of 
ropes 
mean 

lad  be- 
Ito  give 
Ipening 
Ike-like 
[steam; 


and  a  man's  breath  looked  like  the  firing  of  a  pistol 
on  a  small  scale. 

"All  our  eatables  became  laughably  consolidated, 
and  after  different  fashions,  requiring  no  small  expe- 
rience before  we  learned  to  manage  the  peculiarities 
of  their  changed  condition.  Thus,  dried  apples  be- 
came one  solid  breccial  mass  of  impacted  angularities, 
a  conglomerate  of  sliced  chalcedony.  Dried  peaches 
the  same.  To  get  these  out  of  the  barrel,  or  the  barrel 
out  of  them,  was  a  matter  impossible.  We  found,  aft- 
er many  trials,  that  the  shortest  and  best  plan  was  to 
cut  up  both  fruit  and  barrel  by  repeated  blows  with  a 
heavy  axe,  taking  the  lumps  below  to  thaw.  Saur- 
kraut  resembled  mica,  or  rather  talcose  slate.  A  crow- 
bar with  chiseled  edge  extracted  the  lamina  badly ; 
but  it  was  perhaps  the  best  thing  we  could  resort  to. 

"  Sugar  formed  a  very  funny  compound.  Take  q.  s. 
of  cork  raspings,  and  incorporate  therewith  another 
q.  s.  of  liquid  gutta  percha  or  caoutchouc,  and  allow  to 
harden :  this  extemporaneous  formula  will  give  you 
the  brown  sugar  of  our  winter  cruise.  Extract  with 
the  saw ;  nothing  but  the  saw  will  suit.  Butter  and 
lard,  less  changed,  require  a  heavy  cold  chisel  and 
mallet.  Their  fracture  is  conchoidal,  with  haematitio 
(iron-ore  pimpled)  surface.  Flour  undergoes  little 
change,  and  molasses  can  at  —28°  be  half  scooped, 
half  cut  by  a  stiff'  iron  ladle. 

"Pork  and  beef  are  rare  specimens  of  Florentine 
mosaic,  emulating  the  lost  art  of  petrified  visceral  mon- 
strosities seen  at  the  medical  schools  of  Bologna  and 
Milan :  crow-bar  and  handspike  !  for  at  —30°  the  axe 
can  hardly  chip  it.  A  barrel  sawed  in  half,  and  kept 
for  two  days  in  the  caboose  house  at  +76°,  was  still 
as  refractory  as  flint  a  few  inches  below  the  surfiice. 


I 


i  1 


» 


260 


ICES. 


'I,  ■•■*•■  "lit 


'■y 


-"!! 


,i! 


A  similar  bulk  of  lamp  oil,  denuded  of  the  staves,  stood 
like  a  yellow  sandstone  roller  for  a  gravel  walk. 

"  Ices  for  the  dessert  come  of  course  unbidden,  in 
all  imaginable  and  unimaginable  variety.  I  have  tried 
my  inventive  powers  on  some  of  them.  A  Roman 
punch,  a  good  deal  stronger  than  the  noblest  Roman 
ever  tasted,  forms  readily  at  —20°.  Some  sugared 
cranberries,  with  a  little  butter  and  scalding  w  liter, 
and  you  have  an  impromptu  strawberry  ice.  Many  a 
time  at  those  funny  little  jams,  that  we  call  in  Phila- 
delphia *  parties,'  where  the  lady-hostess  glides  with 
such  nicely-regulated  indifference  through  the  complex 
machinery  she  has  brought  together,  I  have  thought 
I  noticed  her  stolen  glance  of  anxiety  at  the  cooing 
doves,  whose  icy  bosoms  were  melting  into  one  upon 
the  supper-table  before  their  time.  We  order  these 
things  better  in  the  Arctic.  Such  is  the  '  composition 
and  fierce  quality'  of  our  ices,  that  they  are  brought 
in  served  on  the  shaft  of  a  hickory  broom ;  a  transfix 
ing  rod,  which  we  use  as  a  stirrer  first  and  a  fork  aft 
erward.  So  hard  is  this  terminating  cylinder  of  ice 
that  it  might  serve  as  a  truncheon  to  knock  down  a 
ox.  The  only  difficulty  is  in  the  processes  that  ft  - 
low.  It  is  the  work  of  time  and  energy  to  impress  t 
with  the  carving-knife,  and  you  must  handle  y  ^r 
spoon  deftly,  or  it  fastens  to  your  tongue.  One  of  our 
mess  was  tempted  the  other  day  by  the  crystal  trans- 
parency of  an  icicle  to  break  it  in  his  mouth ;  one 
piece  froze  to  his  tongue,  and  two  others  to  his  lips, 
and  each  carried  off  the  skin :  the  thermometer  was 
at  -28°. 

"Thus  much  for  our  Arctic  grub.  I  need  not  say 
that  our  preserved  meats  would  make  very  fair  can- 
non balls^  canister-shot ! ! 


A    WALK. 


261 


"  Now  let  us  start  out  upon  a  walk,  clothed  in  well- 
fashioned  Arctic  costume.  The  thermometer  is,  say 
-25°,  not  lower,  and  the  wind  blowing  a  royal  breeze, 
but  gently. 

"  Close  the  lips  for  the  first  minute  or  two,  and  ad- 
mit the  air  suspiciously  through  nostril  and  mustache. 
Presently  you  breathe  in  a  dry,  pungent,  but  gracious 
and  agreeable  atmosphere.  The  beard,  eyebrow,  eye- 
lashes, and  the  downy  pubescence  of  the  ears,  acquire 
a  delicate,  white,  and  perfectly-enveloping  cover  of 
venerable  hoar-frost.  The  mustache  and  under  lip 
form  pendulous  beads  of  dangling  ice.  Put  out  your 
tongue,  and  it  instantly  freezes  to  this  icy  crusting, 
and  a  rapid  effort  and  some  hand  aid  will  be  required 
to  liberate  it.  The  less  you  talk,  the  better.  Your 
chin  has  a  trick  of  freezing  to  your  upper  jaw  by  the 
luting  aid  of  your  beard;  even  my  eyes  have  often 
been  so  glued,  as  to  show  that  even  a  wink  may  be  un- 
safe. As  you  walk  on,  you  find  that  the  iron- work 
of  your  gun  begins  to  penetrate  through  two  coats  of 
woolen  mittens,  with  a  sensation  like  hot  water. 

"But  we  have  been  supposing  your  back  to  the 
wind ;  and  if  you  are  a  good  Arcticized  subject,  a  warm 
glow  has  already  been  followed  by  a  profuse  sweat. 
Now  turn  about  and  face  the  wind ;  what  a  devil  of 
a  change  !  how  the  atmospheres  are  wafted  off"!  how 
penetratingly  the  cold  trickles  down  your  neck,  and 
in  at  your  pockets !  Whew !  a  jack-knife,  heretofore, 
like  Bob  Sawyer's  apple,  '  unpleasantly  warm'  in  the 
breeches  pocket,  has  changed  to  something  as  cold  as 
ice  and  hot  as  fire :  make  your  way  back  to  the  ship! ! 
I  was  once  caught  three  miles  off  with  a  freshening 
wind,  and  at  one  time  feared  that  1  would  hardly  see 
the  brig  again.    Morton,  who  accompanied  me,  had 


if 


11 


h4 


262 


FREEZING    TO    DEATH. 


ML' 


^  -f^  • 


■3,: 


n :"'! 


"V 


his  cheeks  frozen,  and  I  felt  that  lethargic  numbness 
mentioned  in  the  story  books. 

"I  will  tell  you  what  this  feels  like,  for  I  have  been 
twice  'caught  out.'  Sleepiness  is  not  the  sensation. 
Have  you  ever  received  the  shocks  of  a  magneto-elec- 
tric machine,  and  had  the  peculiar  benumbing  sensa- 
tion of  '  can't  let  go,'  extending  up  to  your  elbow- 
joints  ?  Deprive  this  of  its  paroxysmal  character ;  sub- 
due, but  diffuse  it  over  every  part  of  the  system,  and 
you  have  the  so-called  pleasurable  feelings  of  incipient 
freezing.  It  seems  even  to  extend  to  your  brain.  Its 
inertia  is  augmented ;  every  thing  about  you  seems 
of  a  ponderous  sort ;  and  the  whole  amount  of  pleasure 
is  in  gratifying  the  disposition  to  remain  at  rest,  and 
spare  yourself  an  encounter  with  these  latent  resist- 
ances. This  is,  I  suppose,  the  pleasurable  sleepiness 
of  the  story  books. 

"I  could  fill  page  after  page  with  the  ludicrous  mis- 
eries of  our  ship-board  life.  We  have  two  climates, 
hygrometrically  as  well  as  thermometrically  at  oppo- 
site ends  of  the  scale.  A  pocket-handkerchief,  pocket- 
ed below  in  the  region  of  stoves,  comes  up  unchanged. 
Go  below  again,  and  it  becomes  moist,  flaccid,  and 
almost  wet.  Go  on  deck  again,  and  it  resembles  a 
shingle  covered  with  linen.  I  could  pick  my  teeth 
with  it. 

"You  are  anxious  to  know  how  I  manage  to  stand 
this  remorseless  temperature.  It  is  a  short  story,  and 
perhaps  worth  the  telling  '  The  Doctor'  still  retains 
three  luxuries,  remnants  ot  better  times — silk  next 
his  skin,  a  tooth-brush  for  his  teeth,  and  white  linen 
for  his  nose.  Every  thing  else  is  Arctic  and  hairy — 
fur,  fur,  fur.  The  silk  is  light  and  washable,  needing 
neither  the  clean  dirt  of  starch  nor  the  uncomfortable 


— « i^ii  „ 


ess 

sen 
Lon. 
lec- 
[isa- 

(OW- 

sub- 
and 
>ient 
Its 
Bems 
isure 
,  and 
esist- 
)iness 

s  mis- 
nates, 
oppo- 
cket- 
nged. 
and 
les  a 
teeth 

stand 
ly,  and 

Retains 

next 

linen 

liry — 

ceding 

Lrtable 


COSTUME. 


263 


trouble  of  flat-irons.     It  secures  to  me  a  clean  screen 
between  my  epidermoid  and  seal-skin  integuments. 

"  I  try  to  be  a  practical  man  as  to  clothing  and  the 
et  ceteras  of  a  traveler.  All  baggage  beyond  the  essen- 
tial I  regard  as  impedimenta,  and  believe  in  the  wis- 
dom of  Titian  Peale,  who,  v,  hen  preparing  for  an  ex- 
ploring tour  around  the  world,  purchased — a  tin  cup. 
For  the  sake  of  poor  devils  condemned  to  cold  winters, 
I  give  in  detail  my  dress,  the  result  of  much  trial,  and, 
I  think,  nearly  perfect.     Here  it  is,  from  tip  to  toe. 

"  1.  Feet.  A  pair  of  cotton  socks  (Lisle  thread)  cov- 
ered by  a  pair  of  ribbed  woolen  stockings,  rising  above 
the  knee  and  half  way  up  the  thigh.  Over  these  a 
pair  of  Esquimaux  water-proof  boots,  lined  by  a  sock 
of  dog-skin,  the  hair  inside ;  the  leg  of  dressed  seal- 
hide  ;  a  sole  with  the  edges  turned  up,  and  crimped  so 
as  to  form  a  water-tight  cup ;  the  furred  edge  of  a  dog- 
skin sock  inserted  as  a  lining ;  and  some  clean  straw 
laid  smoothly  at  the  bottom,  which  forms  the  elastic 
cushion  on  which  you  tread. 

"2.  Legs.  A  pair  of  coarse  woolen  drawers,  and  a 
pair  of  seal-skin  breeks  over  them,  stitched  with  rein- 
deer tendon. 

"3.  Chest.  A  jumper  or  short  coat,  double,  of  seal- 
skin and  reiideer  fur.  This  invaluable  article  I  got 
at  Disco  on  my  fur  journey,  obtaining  a  good  number 
besides  for  men  and  officers.  It  consists  of  an  inner- 
hooded  shirt  of  reindeer-skin  with  the  hair  inside, 
reaching  as  far  as  the  upper  ridge  of  the  hips,  so  as  to 
allow  free  swing  to  the  legs,  and  fitting  about  the 
throat  very  closely.  It  is  drawn  on  like  the  shirt,  and, 
except  at  the  neck,  is  perfectly  loose  and  unbinding. 

"  4.  Head.  Our  people  generally  wear  fur  caps.  I 
wear  an  ear-ridge,  a  tiara,  to  speak  heroically,  of  wolf- 


t-A 


i 


VjKfl^l 

\\ 

264 


COSTUME. 


'g  ii 


s 


skin.  Excellent  is  this  Mormon  fur !  Leaving  the 
entire  poll  bare  to  the  elements,  it  guards  the  ears  and 
forehead  effectually:  in  any  ordinary  state  of  the  wind 
above  — 15°,  I  am  not  troubled  with  the  cold.  Before 
I  resorted  to  this,  my  cap  was  full  of  frozen  water, 
stiff  and  uncomfortable,  all  the  condensation  turning 
to  ice  the  moment  I  uncovered.  When  the  weather 
is  very  cold,  I  up  hood ;  when  colder,  say  —40°,  with 
a  middling  breeze — quite  cold  enough,  I  assure  you 
— I  wear  an  elastic  silk  night-cap  in^ addition,  one  of 
a  pair  forced  on  me  by  a  certain  brother  of  mine  as 
I  was  leaving  New  York,  drawn  over  my  head  and 
face,  and  lined  with  a  mask  of  wolf-skin.  To  prevent 
excessive  condensation,  I  cut  only  two  eye-holes,  and 
leave  a  large  aperture  below  the  point  of  the  nose  for 
talking  and  breathing.  A  grim-looking  object  is  this 
wolf-skin  mask,  its  openings  liiied  with  water-proof 
oiled  silk. 

"  The  only  changes  in  the  above  are  a  pair  of  cloth 
pants  for  fur,  when  the  thermometer  strays  above 
—  ^  5°,  and  a  pair  of  heavy  woolen  wad-mail  leggins, 
drawn  over  my  fur  pants,  and  worn,  stocking  fashion, 
within  my  boots,  in  windy  weather,  when  we  get 
down  to  —30°  or  thereabouts.  A  long  waist-scarf, 
worn  like  the  kummerbund  of  the  Hindoos,  is  a  fine 
protection  while  walking,  to  keep  the  cold  from  intru- 
ding at  the  pockets  Rnd  waist:  it  consummates,  as  it 
floats  martially  on  the  breeze,  the  grotesque  harmonies 
of  my  attire." 


ARCTIC  MA^K. 


'■*\i 


I! 


OFF  choker's  bay,  DEC.  23. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 


^^  December  21,  Saturday.  To-day  at  noon  we  saw, 
dimly  looming  up  from  the  redness  of  the  southern 
horizon,  a  low  range  of  hills ;  among  them  some  cones 
of  great  height,  mountains  of  a  character  differing  from 
the  naked  tahle-lands  of  the  northern  coast.  The  land 
on  the  other  side  of  Croker's  Bay,  with  one  high  head- 
land, supposed  to  he  Cape  Warrender,  is  in  view. 
From  all  of  which  it  is  clear  that  we  are  drifting  reg- 
ularly on  toward  Baffin's  Bay. 

"An  opening  occurred  last  night  in  the  ice  to  the 
northward.  It  is  not  more  than  a  hundred  yards  from 
us,  and  it  is  already  seventy  wide.  It  was  explored  for 
ahout  a  mile  in  a  northwest  and  southeast  course. 
Another  of  the  same  character  is  ahout  half  a  mile  to 
the  south  of  us. 

"Our  floe  has  now  remained  in  peace  for  nearly 
three  weeks;  and,  with  the  happy  indifference  of  sail- 
ors' human  nature,  we  are  beginning  to  forget  the  driv- 
ing ice  and  the  groaning  pressures  which  have  perched 
us  thus  upon  a  lump  of  drift.  I  look,  howdver,  to  the 
spring-tides  for  a  renewal  of  the  trouble.     The  ice 


! 


n 


266 


CHANGES. 


';if-- 


r    "U 


'7  !^fr^ 


:'   •■I 


about  us  is  apparently  as  strong  and  solid  as  the  slow 
growth  of  Wellington  Channel ;  but  we  know  it  to 
be  recent,  and  less  able  to  withstand  pressure.  Ev- 
ery thing  now  depends  upon  preserving  our  vessel  and 
stores.  A  breaking  up  must  take  place,  and  for  us  the 
later  in  the  spring  the  better.  At  the  present  rate  of 
progress,  we  shall  be  in  Baffin's  Bay  by  the  latter  end 
of  January.  There  the  daylight  will  be  with  us  again ; 
most  providentially,  for  the  icebergs  are  wretched  en- 
emies in  darkness.  Thirty  more  days,  and  we  may 
take  a  noonday  walk ;  forty-four,  and  the  sun  comes 
back. 

"  Our  men  are  hard  at  work  preparing  for  the  Christ- 
mas theatre,  the  arrangements  exclusively  their  own. 
But  to-morrow  is  a  day  more  welcome  than  Christmas 
— the  solstitial  day  of  greatest  darkness,  from  which 
we  may  begin  to  date  our  returning  light.  It  makes 
a  man  feel  badly  to  see  the  faces  around  him  bleach- 
ing into  waxen  paleness.  Until  to-day,  as  a  looking- 
glass  does  not  enter  into  an  Arctic  toilet,  I  thought  I 
was  the  exception,  and  out  of  delicacy  said  nothing 
about  it  to  my  comrades.  One  of  them,  introducing 
the  topic  just  now,  told  me,  with  an  utter  unconscious- 
ness of  his  own  ghostliness,  that  I  was  the  palest  of 
the  party.  So  it  is,  'AH  men  think  all  men,'  &c. 
Why,  the  good  fellow  is  as  white  as  a  cut  potato !" 

In  truth,  we  were  all  of  us  at  this  time  undergoing 
changes  unconsciously.  The  hazy  obscurity  of  the 
nights  we  had  gone  through  made  them  darker  than 
the  corresponding  nights  of  Parry.  The  complexiono 
of  my  comrades,  and  my  own  too,  as  I  found  soon  after- 
ward, were  toned  down  to  a  peculiar  waxy  paleness. 
Our  eyes  were  more  recessed,  and  strangely  clear. 
Complaints  of  shortness  of  breath  became  general.   Our 


1 

1 

)..; 

H 

■'•' 

III 

"'  ;..; 

\ , 

■>          t 

■■  ,f !:..  •- 

i 

m^nl 

THE    SOLSTICE. 


267 


appetite  was  almost  ludicrously  changed :  ham-fat  fro- 
zen, nud  saur-kraut  swimming  in  olive-oil  were  favor- 
ites ;  yet  we  were  unconscious  of  any  tendency  to- 
ward the  gross  diet  of  the  Polar  region.  Most  of  my 
companions  would  not  touch  hear ;  indeed,  I  was  the 
only  one,  except  Captain  De  Haven,  that  still  ate  it. 
Fox,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  favorite.  Things  seem- 
ed to  have  changed  their  taste,  and  our  inclination  for 
food  was  at  best  very  slight. 

Worse  than  this,  our  complete  solitude,  combined 
with  permanent  darkness,  began  to  affect  our  morale. 
Men  became  moping,  testy,  and  imaginative.  In  the 
morning,  dreams  of  the  night  —  we  could  not  help 
using  the  term — were  narrated.  Some  had  visited  the 
naked  shores  of  Cape  Warrender,  and  returned  laden 
with  water-meloii::.  Others  had  found  Sir  John  Frank- 
lin in  a  beautiful  cove,  lined  by  quintas  and  orange- 
trees.  Even  Brooks,  our  hard-fisted,  unimaginative 
boatswain,  told  me,  in  confidence,  of  having  heard 
three  strange  groans  out  upon  the  ice.  He  "  thought 
it  was  a  bear,  but  could  see  nothing !"  In  a  word,  the 
health  of  our  little  company  was  broken  in  upon.  It 
required  strenuous  and  constant  effort  at  washing,  diet, 
and  exercise  to  keep  the  scurvy  at  bay.  Eight  cases 
of  scorbutic  gums  were  already  upon  my  black-list. 
One  severe  pneumonia  left  me  in  anxious  doubt  as  to 
its  result.     There  was,  however,  little  bronchitis. 

^^ December  22,  Sunday.  The  solstice ! — the  midnight 
of  the  year !  It  commences  with  a  new  movement  in 
the  ice,  the  open  lead  of  yesterday  piling  up  into  hum- 
mocks on  our  port-beam.     No  harm  done.  ' 

"The  wind  is  from  the  west,  increasing  in  fresh- 
ness since  early  in  the  morning.  The  weather  over- 
cast ;  even  the  moon  unseen,  and  no  indications  of  our 


i 


u 


u 


268 


CHRISTMAS. 


ii 


M 


'^1 


""^ 


m 


■■       «;■ 


drift.  We  could  not  read  print,  not  even  large  news, 
paper  type,  at  noonday.  We  have  been  unable  to  leave 
the  ship  unarmed  for  some  time  on  account  of  the 
bears.  We  remember  the  story  of  poor  Barentz,  one 
of  our  early  predecessors.  One  of  our  crew,  Blinn,  a 
phlegmatic  Dutchman,  walked  out  to-day  toward  the 
lead,  a  few  hundred  yards  off,  in  search  of  a  seal-hole. 
Suddenly  a  seal  rose  close  by  him  in  the  sludge-ice : 
he  raised  his  gun  to  fire ;  and,  at  the  same  instant,  a 
large  bear  jumped  over  the  floe,  and  by  a  dive  followed 
the  seal.  Blinn's  musket  snapped.  He  was  glad  to 
get  on  board  again,  and  will  remember  his  volunteer 
hunt.  Thermometer,  minimum,  -18°;  maximum, 
—6°.     A  beautiful  paraselene  yesterday ! ! 

^^Decemher  23,  Monday.  Perfect  darkness!  Drift 
unknown.  Winds  nearly  at  rest,  with  the  exception 
of  a  little  gasp  from  the  westward.  Thermometer 
never  below  —12°,  nor  above  —7°. 

^^December  24,  Tuesday.  '  Through  utter  darkness 
borne !' 

"Decembei  25.  'Y"  Christmas  of  y*  Arctic  cruisers!' 
Our  Christmas  passed  without  a  lack  of  the  good  things 
of  this  life.  *  Goodies'  we  had  galore  ;  but  that  best 
of  earthly  blessings,  the  communion  of  loved  sympa- 
thies, these  Arctic  cruisers  had  not.  It  was  curious  to 
observe  the  depressing  influences  of  each  man's  home 
thoughts,  and  absolutely  saddening  the  effort  of  each 
man  to  impose  upon  his  neighbor  and  be  very  boon  and 
jolly.  We  joked  incessantly,  but  badly,  and  laughed 
incessantly,  but  badly  too ;  ate  of  good  things,  and 
drank  up  a  moiety  of  our  Heidsiek  ;  and  then  we  sang 
negro  songs,  wanting  only  tune,  measure,  and  harmony, 
but  abounding  in  noise ;  and  after  a  closing  bumper 
to  Mr.  Grinnell,  adjourned  with  creditable  jollity  from 
table  to  the  theatre. 


CHRISTMAS    FROLICS. 


269 


"It  was  on  deck,  of  course,  but  veiled  from  the  sky 
by  our  felt  covering.  A  large  ship's  ensign,  stretched 
from  the  caboose  to  the  bulwarks,  was  understood  to 
hide  the  stage,  and  certain  meat-casks  and  candle- 
boxes  represented  the  parquet.  The  thermometer 
gave  us  —6°  at  first;  but  the  favoring  elements  soon 
changed  this  to  the  more  comfortable  temperature  of 
-4°. 

"  Never  had  I  enjoyed  the  tawdry  quackery  of  the 
stage  half  so  much.  The  theatre  has  always  been  to 
me  a  wretched  simulation  of  realities ;  and  I  have  too 
little  sympathy  with  the  unreal  to  find  pleasure  in  it 
long.  Not  so  our  Arctic  theatre  :  it  was  one  continual 
frolic  from  beginning  to  end. 

"  The  '  Blue  Devils  :'  God  bless  us !  but  it  was  very, 
very  funny.  None  knew  their  parts,  and  the  prompter 
could  not  read  glibly  enough  to  do  his  office.  Every 
thing,  whether  jocose,  or  indignant,  or  commonplace, 
or  pathetic,  was  delivered  in  a  high  tragedy  monotone 
of  despair ;  five  words  at  a  time,  or  more  or  less,  ac- 
cording to  the  facilities  of  the  prompting.  Megrim, 
with  a  pair  of  seal-skin  boots,  bestowed  his  gold  upon 
the  gentle  Annette ;  and  Annette,  nearly  six  feet  high, 
received  it  with  mastodonic  grace.  Annette  was  an 
Irishman  named  Daly ;  and  I  might  defy  human  be- 
ing to  hear  her,  while  balanced  on  the  heel  of  her  boot, 
exclaim,  in  rich  masculine  brogue, '  Och,  feather !'  with- 
out roaring.  Bruce  took  the  Landlord,  Benson  was 
James,  and  the  gentle  Annette  and  the  wealthy  Me- 
grim were  taken  by  Messrs.  Daly  and  Johnson. 

"  After  this  followed  the  Star  Spangled  Banner ;  then 
a  complicated  Marseillaise  by  our  French  cook,  Hen- 
ri ;  then  a  sailor's  hornpipe  by  the  diversely-talented 
Bruce  ;  the  orchestra — Stewart,  playing  out  the  inter- 


*r!i 


Ill; 


11 


270 


THE    DRIFT. 


vals  on  the  Jews-harp  from  the  top  of  a  lard-cask.  In 
fact,  we  were  very  happy  fellows.  We  had  had  a 
foot-race  in  the  morning  over  the  midnight  ice  for  three 
purses  of  a  flannel  shirt  each,  and  a  splicing  of  the 
main-brace.  The  day  was  night,  the  stars  shining 
feebly  through  the  mist. 

"  But  even  here  that  kindly  custom  of  Christmas- 
gifting  was  not  forgotten.  I  found  in  my  morning 
stocking  a  jack-knife,  symbolical  of  my  altered  looks, 
a  piece  of  Castile  soap — this  last  article  in  great  re- 
quest— a  Jews-harp,  and  a  string  of  beads !  On  the 
other  hand,  I  prescribed  from  the  medical  stores  two 
bottles  of  Cognac,  to  protect  the  mess  from  indiges- 
tion.* So  passed  Christmas.  Thermometer,  mini- 
mum, —  16°;  maximum,  -7°.     Wind  west. 

"December  26,  Thursday.  To-day,  looming  up  high 
in  the  air,  we  catch  a  sight  of  new  unknown  land. 
Of  our  drift,  save  by  analogy,  we  know  nothing. 

"December  27,  Friday.  The  shores  of  this  coast  seem 
to  have  changed  their  scale.  At  Cape  Riley,  as  my 
sketches  show,  the  limestone  rises  in  a  mural  face, 
based  by  a  deposit  of  detritus,  which  extends  out  in 
tongues,  indentations,  and  salient  capes ;  and  between 
these,  a  cemented  shingle,  full  of  corallines  and  en- 
crinites,  forms  a  beach  of  varying  extent. 

"  Sometimes  this  beach  is  backed  by  rolling  dune- 
like hills  of  the  scaly  mountain  limestones ;  but  after 
a  mile  or  two  of  intermission,  the  high  cliffs  rise  up 
again  in  abutments,  and  continue  unbroken  until  an- 
other interval  occurs.  As  we  proceeded  east,  these  es- 
carped masses  became  more  buttress-like  and  monu- 
mental, rising  up  into  plateau-topped  masses,  separated 

*  An  offense  which  I  thus  publicly  acknowledge  in  advance  of  the  court- 
martial,  to  which  this  illegal  dispensation  of  the  public  stores  may  subject  me. 


THE    DRIFT. 


271 


by  chasms,  which  seem  mere  ruptures  in  the  contin- 
uous  hill-line.  Now,  however,  a  trace  is  seen  in  the 
clouds  indicative  of  distant  land,  higher,  more  mount- 
ainous, rolling,  and  broken.  It  may  be  the  Cunning- 
hame  Mountains  toward  Cape  Warrender. 

"  The  wind  is  quietly  blowing  from  the  west,  and 
the  misty  haze  gives  us  barely  a  vestige  of  daylight. 

^^December  28,  Saturday.  From  my  very  soul  do  I 
rejoice  at  the  coming  sun.  Evidences  not  to  be  mis- 
taken convince  me  that  the  health  of  our  crew,  never 
resting  upon  a  very  sound  basis^  must  sink  under  the 
continued  influences  of  darkness  and  cold.  The  tem- 
perature and  foulness  of  air  in  the  between-deck  Tar- 
tarus can  not  be  amended,  otherwise  it  would  be  my 
duty  to  urge  a  change.  Between  the  smoke  of  lamps, 
the  dry  heat  of  stoves,  and  the  fumes  of  the  galley,  all 
of  them  unintermitting,  what  wonder  that  we  grow 
feeble.  The  short  race  of  Christmas-day  knocked  up 
all  our  officers  except  Griffin.  It  pained  me  to  see  my 
friend  Lovell,  our  strongest  man,  fainting  with  the  ex- 
ertion. The  symptoms  of  scurvy  among  the  crew  are 
still  increasing,  and  becoming  more  general.  Faces 
are  growing  pale ;  strong  men  pant  for  breath  upon 
ascending  a  ladder  ;  and  an  indolence  akin  to  apathy 
seems  to  be  creeping  over  us.  I  long  for  the  light. 
Dear,  dear  sun,  no  wonder  you  are  worshiped ! 

"  Our  drift  is  still  eastward,  with  a  slow  but  unerr- 
ing progress.  The  high  land  mentioned  yesterday 
took,  in  spite  of  the  obscuring  haze,  a  distinguishable 
outline.  It  is  not  more  than  eight  miles  off,  and  so 
high  that,  with  its  retiring  flanks  on  either  side,  it  can 
be  none  other  than  the  projecting  Cape  Warrender. 
Its  structure  is  unmistakably  gneissoid.  We  have  now 
left  the  limestones. 


1 


a. 


272 


THE    DRIFT. 


1 


If 


rf 


h 


J 

fr. 

':¥■  ■ 

*!? 


ifi 


"  This  cape  is  the  great  entering  landmark  of  the 
northern  shores  of  Lancaster  Sound .  Just  one  hundred 
days  ago  we  passed  it,  urged  by  the  wings  of  the  storm ; 
our  errand  of  mercy  filling  us  with  hope,  and  the  gale 
calling  for  our  best  energies.  We  were  then  but  a  few 
hours  from  Baffin's  Bay,  and  not  over  twenty-four  from 
the  coast  of  Greenland.  How  differently  are  we  jour- 
neying now ! 

"  The  Bay  of  Baffin,  with  its  moving  ice  and  oppos- 
ing icebergs,  bathed  in  foggy  darkness  and  destitute 
of  human  fellowship  or  habitable  asylum,  is  before 
us ;  and  we,  so  utterly  helpless,  hampered,  and  non- 
resistant,  must  await  the  inevitable  action  of  the 
ice.  This  nearness  to  Cape  Warrender  makes  us  feel 
that  our  silent  marches  have  brought  us  near  to  an- 
other conflict. 

"December  29,  Sunday.  The  drift  shows  an  indent 
of  the  cape  now  abaft  our  beam.  We  are  slowly  mak- 
ing easting.  The  day  is  one  of  the  same  obscure  and 
dimmed  fog  which  for  the  past  week  has  wrapped  us 
in  darkness.  The  ice  gives  no  change  as  yet:  the 
same  great  field  of  moving  whiteness. 

"December  30,  Monday.  By  a  comparison  of  our  sev- 
eral days'  positions,  I  find  that  from  the  18th  to  the 
28th  we  have  drifted  fifty-two  miles  and  a  half,  some- 
thing over  five  miles  a  day.  The  winds  during  this 
period  have  been  from  the  westward,  constant  though 
gentle ;  and  our  progress  has  been  of  the  same  steady 
but  gentle  sort.  At  this  rate,  we  will  in  a  few  days 
more  be  within  the  Baffin's  Bay  incognita. 

"Looking  round  upon  my  mess-mates  with  that 
sort  of  scrutiny  that  belongs  to  my  craft  and  my  posi- 
tion, I  am  startled  at  the  traces,  moral  and  physical, 
of  our  Arctic  winter  life.     Those  who  con  it  over  the- 


RETURNING    LIGHT. 


273 


mat 
losi- 
Ical, 
the- 


oretically can  hardly  realize  the  operation  of  the  host 
of  returUing  influences  that  belong  to  a  Polar  night. 
If  I  were  asked  to  place  in  foremost  rank  the  item  that 
has  been  most  trying,  it  would  be  neither  the  perpet- 
ual cold,  nor  the  universal  sameness,  nor  our  complete 
exclusion  from  the  active  world  of  our  brother  men, 
but  this  constant  and  oppressing  gloom,  this  unvaried 
darkness. 

"To-day  was  clear  toward  the  south,  so  that  the 
blessing  of  light  came  to  us  more  largely  than  of  late. 
I  walked  about  a  mile  on  the  recent  lead,  now  frozen 
to  a  level  meandering  lane.  We  see  to  the  north  the 
Cunninghame  Mountains  of  Cape  Warrender,  but  can 
not  make  out  our  change  of  position  definitely.  To 
the  south,  an  outlined  ridge  of  doubtful  mountain  land 
shows  itself  high  in  the  clouds ;  probably  a  part  of  the 
high  ridges  east  of  Admiralty  Inlet. 

"  The  thermometer  fell  at  eight  this  morning  to 
-21°.  By  noonday  it  gave  us  -26°  and  -27°.  It 
is  now  —22°.  The  wind  is  gentle  and  cold,  but  not 
severe. 

^^Decemher  31,  Tuesday.  The  ending  day  of  1850 ! 
So  clear  and  beautiful  is  this  parting  day,  that  I  must 
take  it  as  a  happy  omen.  Pellucid  clearness,  and  a 
sky  of  deep  ultra-marine,  brought  back  the  remem- 
brance of  daylight.     I  give  the  record  of  the  day. 

"  9  A.M.  The  stars  visible  even  to  the  lesser  groups ; 
but  a  deep  zone  of  Italian  pink  rises  from  the  south, 
and  passes  by  prismatic  gradations  into  the  clear  blue. 
The  outline  of  the  shore  to  the  northward  is  well  de- 
fined. 

"  10.  The  day  is  growing  into  clearness.  The  ther- 
mometer is  at  twenty-seven  degrees  below  zero.  Your 
lungs  tingle  pleasantly  as  you  draw  it  in. 

S 


I'M 


274 


RETURNING     LIGHT. 


% 


"11.  Can  read  ordinary  over-sized  print.  Started 
on  a  walk,  the  first  time  for  twenty-odd  days.  Saw 
the  great  lead,  and  traveled  it  for  a  couple  of  miles, 
expanding  into  a  plain  of  recent  ice. 

"M.  Passed  noon  on  the  ice.  Can  read  diamond 
type.  Stars  of  the  first  magnitude  only  visible.  Sat- 
urn magnificent ! 

"1  P.M.  With  difficulty  read  large  type.  The 
clouds  gathering  in  black  stratus  over  the  red  light 
to  the  south. 

"  2.  The  heavens  studded  with  stars  in  their  group- 
ings. Night  is  again  over  every  thing,  although  the 
minor  stars  are  not  3ret  seen. 

"  Since  the  first  of  this  month,  we  have  drifted  in 
solitude  one  hundred  and  seventy  miles,  skirting  the 
northern  shores  of  Lancaster  Sound.  Baffin's  Bay  is 
ahead  of  us,  its  current  setting  strong  toward  the  south. 
What  will  be  the  result  when  the  mighty  masses  of 
these  two  Arctic  seas  come  together !" 


I . : 


w 


WINTEIl    IN    THE    TACK  :     CAUIN    OF   THE    AUVA.NCE. 


CHAPTER  XXXIL 


1851,  January  1,  Wednesday.  The  first  day  of  1851 
set  ill  cold,  the  thermometer  at  —28°,  and  closing  at 
—31°.  We  celebrated  it  by  an  extra  dinner,  a  plum- 
cake  unfrosted  for  the  occasion,  and  a  couple  of  our  re- 
siduary bottles  of  wine.  But  there  was  no  joy  in  our 
merriment :  we  were  weary  of  the  night,  as  those  who 
watch  for  the  morning. 

It  was  not  till  the  3d  that  the  red  southern  zone 
continued  long  enough  to  give  us  assurance  of  advanc- 
ing day.  Then,  for  at  least  three  hours,  the  twilight 
enabled  us  to  walk  without  stumbling.  I  had  a  feel- 
ing of  racy  enjoyment  as  I  found  myself  once  more 
away  from  the  ship,  ranging  among  the  floes,  and 
watching  the  rivalry  of  day  with  night  in  the  zenith. 
There  was  the  sunward  horizon,  with  its  evenly-dis- 


r!&J':''i 


276 


EIGHTH    OF    JANUARY. 


fl»*^^:1^i 


*s-^:^: 


.1    .f^f,  : 


„  \ 


^fl 


9        ) 


tributed  bands  of  primitive  colors,  blending  softly  into 
the  clear  blue  overhead ;  and  then,  by  an  almost  magic 
transition,  night  occupying  the  western  sky.  Stars 
of  the  first  magnitude,  and  a  wandering  planet  here 
and  there,  shone  dimly  near  the  debatable  line  ;  but 
a  little  further  on  were  all  the  stars  in  their  glory. 
The  northern  firmament  had  the  familiar  beauty  of  a 
pure  winter  night  at  home.  The  Pleiades  glittered 
"  like  a  swarm  of  fire-flies  tangled  in  a  silver-braid," 
and  the  great  stars  that  hang  about  the  heads  of  Orion 
and  Taurus  were  as  intensely  bright  as  if  day  was  not 
looking  out  upon  them  from  the  other  quarter  of  the 
sky.  1  had  never  seen  night  and  day  dividing  the 
hemisphere  so  beautifully  between  them. 

On  the  8tli  we  had,  of  course,  our  national  festivi- 
ties, and  remembered  freshly  the  hero  who  consecrated 
the  day  in  our  annals.  The  evening  brought  the  the- 
atricals again,  with  extempore  interludes,  and  a  hearty 
splicing  of  the  main-brace.  It  was  something  new, 
and  not  thoroughly  gladsome,  this  commemoration  of 
the  victory  at  New  Orleans  under  a  Polar  sky.  There 
were  men  not  two  hundred  miles  from  us,  now  our 
partners  in  a  nobler  contest,  who  had  bled  in  this  very 
battle.  But  we  made  the  best  of  the  occasion  ;  and 
if  others  some  degrees  further  to  the  south  celebrated 
it  more  warmly,  we  had  the  thermometer  on  our  side, 
with  its  -20^,  a  normal  temperature  for  the  "  lauda- 
tur  et  alget." 

But  the  sun  was  now  gradually  coming  up  toward 
the  horizon  :  every  day  at  meridian,  and  for  an  hour 
before  and  after,  we  were  able  to  trace  our  progress 
eastward  by  some  known  headland.  We  had  passed 
Cape  Castlereagh  and  Cape  Warrender  in  succession, 
and  were  close  on  the  meridian  of  Cape  Osborn.     The 


*  I 


OUU     FLOE. 


277 


our 
very 

and 
grated 

side, 
lauda- 

Iward 

hour 

jgress 

lassed 

3sion, 

The 


disruptions  of  the  ice  which  we  had  encountered  so 
far,  had  always  been  at  the  periods  of  spring-tide.  The 
sun  and  moon  were  in  conjunction  on  the  21st  of  De- 
cember ;  and,  adopting  Captain  Parry's  observation, 
that  the  greatest  efflux  was  always  within  five  day>> 
after  the  new  moon,  we  iiad  looked  with  some  anxiety 
to  the  closing  weeks  of  that  month.  But  they  had 
gone  by  without  any  unusual  movement ;  and  there 
needed  only  an  equally  kind  visitation  of  the  January 
moon  to  give  us  our  hnal  struggle  with  the  Baffin's 
Bay  ice  by  daylight. 

Yet  I  had  remarked  that  the  southern  shore  of  Lan- 
caster Sound  extended  much  further  out  to  the  east- 
ward than  the  northern  did  ;  and  I  had  argued  thai 
we  might  begin  to  feel  the  current  of  Baffin's  Bay  in 
a  very  few  days,  though  we  were  still  considerably 
to  the  west  of  a  line  drawn  from  one  cape  to  the  other. 
The  question  received  its  solution  without  waiting  for 
the  moon. 

I  give  from  my  journal  our  position  in  the  ice  on  the 
11th  of  January : 

''■January  11,  Saturday.  The  floe  in  which  we  are 
now  imbedded  has  been  steadily  increasing  in  solid- 
ity for  more  than  a  month.  Since  the  8th  of  Decem- 
ber, not  a  fracture  or  collision  has  occurred  to  mar  its 
growth.  The  eye  can  not  embrace  its  extent.  Even 
from  the  mast-head  you  look  over  an  unbounded  ex- 
panse of  naked  ice,  bristling  with  contorted  spires,  and 
ridged  by  elevated  axes  of  hummocks.  The  land  on 
either  side  rises  above  our  icy  horizon  ;  but  to  the  east 
and  west,  there  is  no  such  interception  to  our  wintery- 
ness. 

"The  brig  remains  as  she  was  tossed  at  our  provi- 
dential escape  of  last  month,  her  nose  burrowing  in  the 


'Ml 


I 


;lf.  :i 


Ei'l 


278 


COMMOTION    OF    THE     ICE. 


iff 


ill 


III 


'"»:=.. 


•!:.     >:■     I 


II 


snow,  and  her  stern  perched  high  ahove  the  rubbish. 
Walking  deck  is  an  up  and  down  hill  work.  She  re- 
tains, too,  her  list  to  starboard.  Her  bare  sides  have 
been  banked  over  again  with  snow  to  increase  tlie 
warmth,  and  a  formidable  flight  of  nine  ice-block  steps 
admits  us  to  the  door- way  of  her  winter  cover.  The 
stores,  hastily  thrown  out  from  the  vessel  when  we 
expected  her  to  go  to  pieces,  are  still  upon  the  little 
remnant  of  old  floe  on  our  port  or  northern  side.  The 
Rescue  is  some  hundred  yards  off  to  the  south  of  east." 

The  next  day  things  underwent  a  change.  The 
morning  was  a  misty  one,  giving  us  just  light  enough 
to  make  out  objects  that  were  near  the  ship ;  the  wind 
westerly,  as  it  had  been  for  some  time,  freshening  per- 
haps to  a  breeze.  The  day  went  on  quietly  till  noon, 
when  a  sudden  shock  brought  us  all  up  to  the  deck. 
Running  out  upon  the  ice,  we  found  that  a  crack  had 
opened  between  us  and  the  Rescue,  and  was  extending 
in  a  zigzag  course  from  the  northward  and  eastward 
to  the  southward  and  westward.  At  one  o'clock  it  had 
become  a  chasm  eight  feet  in  width  ;  and  as  it  contin- 
ued to  widen,  we  observed  a  distinct  undulation  of  the 
water  about  its  edges.  At  three,  it  had  expanded 
into  a  broad  sheet  of  water,  filmed  over  by  young  ice, 
through  which  the  portions  of  the  floe  that  bore  cur 
two  vessels  began  to  move  obliquely  toward  each  other. 
Night  closed  round  us,  with  the  chasm  reduced  to  forty 
yards  and  still  narrowing;  the  Rescue  on  her  port- 
bow,  two  hundred  yards  from  her  late  position ;  the 
wind  increasing,  and  the  thermometer  at  —  Iti^. 

My  journal  for  the  next  day  was  written  at  broken 
intervals ;  but  1  give  it  without  change  of  form  : 

^^ January  13,  4  A.M.  All  hands  have  been  on  deck 
since  one  o'clock,  strapped  and  harnessed  for  a  fare- 


COMMOTION    OF    THE    ICE. 


279 


other, 
forty 
•  port- 
the 

Iroken 

deck 
fare- 


well march.  The  water-lane  of  yesterday  is  covered 
by  four-inch  ice ;  the  floes  at  its  margin  more  than 
three  feet  thick.  These  have  been  closing  for  some 
time  by  a  sliding,  grinding  movement,  one  upon  the 
other ;  but  every  now  and  then  coining  together  more 
directly,  the  thinner  ice  clattering  between  them,  and 
marking  their  now  outline  with  hummock  ridges. 
They  have  been  fairly  in  contact  for  the  last  hour :  we 
feel  their  pressure  extending  to  us  through  the  elastic 
floe  in  which  we  are  cradled.  There  is  a  quivering, 
vibratory  hum  about  the  timbers  of  the  brig,  and  ev- 
ery now  and  then  a  harsh  rubbing  creak  along  her 
sides,  like  »vaxed  cork  on  a  mahogany  table.  The 
hummocks  are  driven  to  within  four  feet  of  our  coun- 
ter, and  stand  there  looming  fourteen  feet  high  through 
the  darkness.  It  has  been  a  horrible  commotion  so 
far,  with  one  wild,  booming,  agonized  note,  made  up 
of  a  thousand  discords ;  and  now  comes  the  deep  still- 
ness after  it,  the  mysterious  ice-pulse,  as  if  the  ener- 
gies were  gathering  for  another  strife. 

"  6i  A.M.  Another  pulse !  the  vibration  greater  than 
we  have  ever  yet  had  it.  If  our  little  brig  had  an  an- 
imated centre  of  sensation,  and  some  rude  force  had 
torn  a  nerve-trunk,  she  could  not  feel  it  more  —  she 
fairly  shudders.  Looking  out  to  the  north,  this  ice 
seems  to  heave  up  slowly  against  the  sky  in  black 
hills ;  and  as  we  watch  them  rolling  toward  us,  the 
hills  sink  again,  and  a  distorted  plain  of  rubbish  melts 
before  us  into  the  night.  Ours  is  the  contrast  of  ut- 
ter helplessness  with  illimitable  power. 

"  9  50  A.M.  Brooks  and  myself  took  advantage  of 
the  twilight  at  nine  o'clock  to  cross  the  hummocky 
fields  to  the  Rescue.  I  can  not  convey  an  impression 
of  the  altered  aspects  of  the  floe.    Our  frozen  lane  has 


I  n 


4i', 


.  «l 


i*'"]^ 


'iJi 


\^  Ir 


ii 


1^1  i 


280 


ICE    COMMOTION. 


disappeared,  and  along  the  line  of  its  recent  course  the 
ico  IS  heaped  up  in  blocks,  tables,  lumps,  powder,  and 
rubbish,  often  fifteen  feet  high.  Snow  covered  the 
decks  of  the  little  vessel,  and  the  disorder  about  it 
spoke  sadly  of  desertion.  Foot-prints  of  foxes  were 
seen  in  every  imaginable  corner ;  and  near  the  little 
hatchway,  where  we  had  often  sat  in  comfortable 
good-fellowship,  the  tracks  of  a  large  bear  had  broken 
the  snow  crust  in  his  efforts  to  get  below. 

"  The  Rescue  has  met  the  pressure  upon  her  port- 
bow  and  fore-foot.  Her  bowsprit,  already  maimed  by 
her  adventure  off  Griffith's  Island,  is  now  completely 
forced  up,  broken  short  off  at  the  gammoning.  The 
ice,  after  nipping  her  severely,  has  piled  up  round  her 
three  feet  above  the  bulwarks.  We  had  looked  to  her 
as  our  first  asylum  of  retreat ;  but  that  is  out  of  the 
question  now ;  she  can  not  rise  as  we  have  done,  and 
any  action  that  would  peril  us  again  must  bear  her 
down  or  crush  her  laterally. 

"  The  ice  immediately  about  the  Advance  is  broken 
into  small  angular  pieces,  as  if  it  had  been  dashed 
against  a  crag  of  granite.  Our  camp  out  on  the  floe, 
with  its  reserve  of  provisions  and  a  hundred  things  be- 
sides, memorials  of  scenes  we  have  gone  through,  or  ap- 
pliances and  means  for  hazards  ahead  of  us,  has  been 
carried  away  bodily.  My  noble  specimen  of  the  Arc- 
tic bear  is  floating,  with  an  escort  of  bread  barrels, 
nearly  half  a  mile  off. 

"  The  thermometer  records  only  - 17°  ;  but  it  blows 
at  times  so  very  fiercely  that  I  have  never  felt  it  so 
cold :  five  men  were  frost-bitten  in  the  attempt  to  save 
our  stores. 

"  9  P.M.  We  have  had  no  renewal  of  the  pressure 
since  half  past  six  this  morning.    We  are  turning  in ; 


\  I 


ICE    COMMOTION. 


281 


)lows 
it  so 
save 

Issure 


the  wind  blowing  a  fresh  breeze,  weather  misty,  ther- 
mometer at  —23°." 

The  night  brought  no  further  change ;  but  toward 
morning  the  cracks,  that  formed  before  this  a  sort  of 
net- work  all  about  the  vessel,  began  to  open.  The 
cause  was  not  apparent :  the  wind  had  lulled,  and  we 
saw  no  movement  of  the  floes.  We  had  again  the 
same  voices  of  complaint  from  the  ship,  but  they  were 
much  feebler  than  yesterday ;  and  in  about  an  hour 
the  ice  broke  up  all  round  her,  leaving  an  open  space 
of  about  a  foot  to  port,  indented  with  the  mould  of  her 
form.  The  brig  was  loose  once  more  at  the  sides ;  but 
she  remained  suspended  by  the  bows  and  stern  from 
hummocks  built  up  like  trestles,  and  canted  forward 
still  five  feet  a,nd  a  quarter  out  of  level.  Every  thing 
else  was  fairly  afloat:  even  the  India-rubber  boat, 
which  during  our  troubles  had  found  a  resting-place 
on  a  sound  projection  of  the  floe  close  by  us,  had  to 
be  taken  in. 

This,  I  may  say,  was  a  fearful  position ;  but  the 
thermometer,  at  a  mean  of  —  23°  and  —  24°,  soon 
brought  back  the  solid  character  of  our  floating  raft. 
In  less  than  two  days  every  thing  about  us  was  as 
firmly  fixed  as  ever.  But  the  whole  topography  of  the 
ice  was  changed,  and  its  new  configuration  attested 
the  violence  of  the  elements  it  had  been  exposed  to. 
Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  completely  embodying 
inhospitable  desolation.  From  mast-head  the  eye  trav- 
eled wearily  over  a  broad  champaigne  of  undulating 
ice,  crowned  at  its  ridges  with  broken  masses,  like 
breakers  frozen  as  they  rolled  toward  the  beach.  Be- 
yond these,  you  lost  by  degrees  the  distinctions  of  sur- 
face. It  was  a  great  plain,  blotched  by  dark,  jagged 
sliadows,  and  relieved  only  here  and  there  by  a  hill 


^i 


m 


282 


ICE     COMMOTION. 


i'. 


'If? 


:i 


'I ;; 


of  upheaved  rubbish.  Still  further  in  the  distance 
came  an  unvarying  uniformity  of  shade,  cutting  with 
saw-toothed  edge  against  a  desolate  sky. 

Yet  there  needed  no  after-survey  of  the  ice-field  to 
prove  to  us  what  majestic  forces  had  been  at  work 
upon  it.  At  one  time  on  the  13th,  the  hummock- 
ridge  astern  advanced  with  a  steady  march  upon  the 
vessel.  Twice  it  rested,  and  advanced  again — a  dense 
wall  of  ice,  thirty  feet  broad  at  the  base  and  twelve 
feet  high,  tumbling  huge  fragments  from  its  crest,  yet 
increasing  in  mass  at  each  new  effort.  We  had  ceased 
to  hope ;  when  a  merciful  interposition  arrested  it,  so 
close  against  our  counter  that  there  was  scarcely  room 
for  a  man  to  pass  between.  Half  a  minute  of  progress 
more,  and  it  would  have  buried  us  ail.  As  we  drifted 
along  five  months  afterward,  this  stupendous  memento 
of  controlling  power  was  still  hanging  over  our  stern. 
The  sketch  at  the  head  of  the  next  chapter  represents 
its  appearance  at  the  close  of  the  month. 


BIROOEO  IL'E-l'LOC. 


^^c^-^:::' 


t^'".--^:^f?ji  >  j3^^,i-  :::^'i^|!#> ,i^i^^-,,  '^:-^~,,V"/-^-^: 


?l^i? 


THE   ADVANCE,  FEDRUAav,  IbSl. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

We  had  lost  all  indications  of  a  shore,  and  had  ob- 
viously passed  within  the  influences  of  Baffin's  Bay. 
We  were  on  the  meridian  of  75°;  yet,  though  the  re- 
cent  commotions  could  be  referred  to  nothing  else  but 
the  conflict  of  the  two  currents,  we  had  made  very 
little  southing,  if  any,  and  had  seen  no  bergs.  But  on 
the  14th  the  wind  edged  round  a  little  more  to  the 
northward,  and  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the 
15th  we  could  hear  a  squeezing  noise  among  the  ice- 
fields in  that  direction.  By  this  time  we  had  become 
learned  interpreters  of  the  ice- voices.  Of  course,  we 
renewed  our  preparations  for  whatever  might  be  com- 
ing. Every  man  arranged  his  knapsack  and  blanket- 
bag  over  again  with  the  practiced  discretion  of  an  ex- 
pert. Our  extra  clothing  sledge,  carefully  repacked, 
was  made  free  on  deck.  The  India-rubber  boat,  only 
useful  in  this  solid  waste  for  crossing  occasional  chasms, 
was  launched  out  upon  the  ice  for  the  third  time.    Our 


2SJ 


Al'rUOACIlINU     KAi'FIN    S     HAY. 


>:    1 


n   i 


fonrior  depots  on  tho  Hoc  had  fUrod  so  hadly  tluvt  we 
were  reluctant  to  risk  aiiotluM' ;  but  our  stores  were 
ready  to  he  jj^ot  out  at  tho  inonient.* 

Mow  hejnrau,  with  every  one  after  his  own  lashion. 
the  discussion  what  was  hest  to  be  done  in  ease  of  a 
wreck.  SliouKl  we  try  our  fortunes  for  the  while  on 
board  tlie  Rescue  i  JSlie  would  probably  bo  tho  first 
to  «fo,  and  could  hardly  hope  for  a  more  protracted  fate 
than  her  consort.  Or  should  we  try  for  tho  shore,  and 
what  shore?  Admiralty  Jniet,  or  Pond's  Bay,  or  the 
River  Clyde  ?  AVe  have  no  reason  to  suppose  the  Es- 
quimaux are  accessible  on  tho  coast  in  winter;  and 
if  they  are,  they  can  not  have  provisions  for  such  a 
huufj^ry  re-enforcenuMit  as  ours ;  besides,  the  chance  of 
reachiuir  land  from  the  drilt-field  throu«?h  tho  broken 
ice  betwcn  them  is  slender  at  the  best  for  men  worn 
down  anil  sick  ;  much  more  if  they  should  attempt  to 
carry  two  mojiths'  stores  alonjjf  with  them.  There  was 
only  one  other  resort,  to  camp  out  on  the  lloe,  if  it 
should  kindly  oiler  us  a  foothold,  and  then  move  as 
best  we  mipfht  from  one  failinjf  homestead  to  .luother, 
like  a  baud  of  Arabs  in  tho  desert.  Happily,  Captain 
Do  Haven  was  spared  the  necessity  of  choosinjo^  be- 
tween tho  alternatives :  the  ice-storm  did  not  roach  us. 

''Januanj  io.  The  moon  is  now  nearly  full.  Her 
ligfht  niinjjles  so  with  the  twilijjht  of  tho  sun  thatth*) 
stars  are  quite  sobered  down.     Walking  out  at  4  P.M.. 

♦  1  have  ;iV(Milt'(l  spcakin!;  of  my  brotlirr  t>flii'(M"s.  rmiu  myself,  a  subordin- 
ate, only  acoiilcutally  rofonlinjj  tlioir  exortions,  ii  would  bo  out  of  jdai'o;  yet 
I  should  siK-ak  tho  soutimetil  of  all  on  board  were  I  to  roeognizc  how  much  we 
owed  to  tiiir  cxoi'Utivo  ollU'or,  Mr.  (iriHin.  All  our  systeiuatizod  preparation  for 
tho  oontiii^oiu'ios  which  throatcMU'd  us,  tho  sledfjes,  tho  knapsacks,  the  daily 
training,',  and  the  i)rovisii)n  depots,  were  duo  to  him.  Dur  commander,  Ihon  so 
dl  with  scurvy  that  wo  feared  for  his  recovery,  was  compelled  to  delegate  to 
his  second  in  command  many  executive  duties  which  he  would  otherwise  have 
taken  on  himself. 


«it 


it: 


THE     DRIFT. 


285 


►M.. 

Iibordin- 
Icr;  yet 
liuch  we 
klion  for 
lie  daily 
Ithcn  80 
tgate  to 
■so  have 


with  the  thermometer  at  -24°,  to  find,  if  I  oould,  the 
cause  of  a  sound  a  good  deal  like  that  of  the  surf,  I 
was  startled  by  a  noise  like  a  quarry  blast,  explosive 
and  momentary,  followed  by  a  clatter  like  broken  glass. 
Some  ten  minutes  afterward,  it  was  repeated,  and  a 
dark  smoke-like  vapor  rose  up  in  the  moonlight  from 
the  same  quarter.  These  things  keep  us  on  the  qui 
vivc. 

^^  J  an  nary  IG.  In  the  (bourse  of  a  tramp  to-day  about 
noon,  the  thermometer  standing  at  — 18^,  I  came  across 
a  wonderful  instance  of  the  yielding  elasticity  of  ice 
under  intense  pressure.  About  two  hundred  yards 
from  the  brig,  on  her  starboard  quarter,  was  an  un- 
broken plain  of  level  ice,  which  before  our  recent  break- 
up used  to  ibrm  one  of  my  daily  walks.  It  measured 
one  hundred  and  thirty  paces  in  its  longer  diameter 
and  eighty-five  in  its  shorter,  and  its  thickness  I  ascer- 
tained this  morning  was  over  five  feet.  I  found  in 
crossing  it  to-day  that  the  surface  presented  a  uniform 
curve,  a  segment  whose  versed  sine  could  not  have 
been  less  than  eight  feet,  abutted  on  each  side  by  a 
barricade  of  rubbish.  It  strikes  me  that  the  dehis- 
cence,  lady's  slipper  or  Rupert's  drop  fashion,  of  such 
tensely-compressed  floes,  must  be  the  cause  of  the  loud 
explosions  we  have  heard  lately.  At  —30^  or  —40° 
the  ice  is  as  friable  and  brittle  as  glass  itself;  besides, 
one  of  those  yesterday  was  followed  by  a  ringing 
clatter. 

^^ January  IS.  The  extreme  stillness,  and  the  facil- 
ity with  which  sound  travels  over  these  Polar  ice- 
plains,  make  us  err  a  good  deal  in  our  estimates  of  dis- 
tance at  night.  I  went  out  to-day  with  Dr.  Vreeland 
in  search  of  a  violent  disruption  of  the  ice,  which  our 
look-outs  declared  they  had  heard  at  the  very  side  of 


•!> 


;■*  1 

1! 


mm  1 


Ett  i' 


% 


ih'ii 


280 


THE     DRIFT. 


.11    V '  ^1 


••"H 


h    ) 


*3 


tlie  brifjc.  AV^e  liud  some  dilticulty  in  finding  it :  it  was 
the  closini^  of  a  fissure  (5onsiderably  more  tlian  half  a 
mile  oH". 

"  As  we  were  returninj^  we  noticed  some  additional 
results  of  the  ice  action  ol' the  loth.  Amonj^  them 
was  a  tabk^  of  ice,  ibur  feet  tliick,  eigliteen  lon^;,  and 
fifteen  broad,  so  curved  without  (k^stroying  its  integ- 
rity as  to  form  a  well-arched  bridge  acrross  a  water 
chasm.  It  had  evidently  reared  up  high  in  air,  and 
then,  toppling  over,  bent  into  its  present  form — a  mark- 


..1,-Xt^ 


ed  instance  of  the  semi-solid  or  viscous  character  whicli 
forms  the  basis  of  Professor  Forbes's  glacial  theory. 
It  is  not,  however,  the  first  extreme  change  of  form 
that  I  have  noticed  in  apparently  matured  ice  at  a  low 
temperature :  its  phisticity  at  +32°  must  be  much 
greater. 

"  Observations  by  meridian  altitudes  of  Saturn  and 
Aldebaran  give  us  to-day  a  latitude  of  73°  47^  north. 
Yesterday  we  were  at  73°  5\  This  progress  to  the 
south  is  shown  also  by  the  bearing  of  the  Walter 
Bathurst  coast  in  the  neighborhood  of  Possession  Bay. 
We  are  fully  inside  of  Baffin's  Bay,  and  with  the  wind 
at  northwest.  There  are  some  signs  of  ice  trouble 
ahead ;  a  crack  has  been  gradually  opening  toward 


THE     DRIFT. 


287 


ras 
fa 

nal 
lem 
and 
teg- 
ater 
and 
lark- 


rhioli 

lieory. 

If  form 
a  low 
much 

rn  and 
north, 
to  the 

iValter 

|n  Bay. 
wind 
provihle 
toward 


our  quarter,  and  has  got  within  eight  hundred  yards 
of  us." 

The  day  after  this  the  crack  approached  us  till  it 
was  only  about  three  hundred  yards  ofl",  and  then  be- 
gan closing  again,  with  the  usual  accompanying  phe- 
nomena. The  ice  between  it  and  us  was  apparently 
quiescent;  but  our  ship  quivered  and  jumped  under 
the  transmitted  pressure.  Soon  after,  in  the  midst  of 
a  heavy  snow-drift,  and  with  a  temperature  of  —30°, 
another  crack  showed  itself  close  upon  oui  cut-water. 
The  shocks  which  reached  us  during  these  commo- 
tions are  noted  in  the  log-book  as  "  apparently  lil'ting 
the  vessel  aft :"  the  feeling  was,  ind^^od,  not  unlike 
that  which  has  been  observed  during  an  earthquake, 
immediately  before  and  sometimes  during  a  vibration. 

^^ January  20.  The  ice  sounded  last  night  like  some 
one  hammering  a  nail  against  the  ship's  side,  clicking 
at  regular  intervals.  Another  crack  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Rescue,  now  showing  open  water,  was  perhaps 
the  cause. 

"We  already  hegin  to  experience  the  change  in  our 
axis  of  drift.  The  changes  of  the  wind  and  the  cur- 
rents of  Baffin's  Bay  have  impressed  the  great  system 
which  surrounds  us  with  a  marked  progress  to  the 
south. 

"Throughout  last  night,  and  until  nine  o'clock  this 
morning,  a  column  of  illumination  depended  from  the 
moon.  Viewing  it  obiw^uely,  its  penciled  rays  could 
be  seen  reaching  nearly  to  the  horizon;  while  in  its 
direct  aspect  a  manifest  but  intermitting  interval  was 
apparent.  It  struck  me  as  an  illustration,  perhaps,  of 
Sir  John  Herschell's  remark  when  observing  the  Ple- 
iades, that  the  centre  of  the  retina  is  not  the  seat  of 
greatest  sensibility. 


288 


EFFECTS    OF    NIGHT. 


)  M' 


,  ■::/  ;i? 


m 


'\  )■ 


"Our  snow-water  has  been  infected  for  the  past 
month  by  a  very  perceptible  flavor  and  odor  of  musk, 
to  such  a  degree  sometimes  that  we  could  hardly  drink 
it.  After  many  attempts  to  find  out  its  cause,  and  at 
least  as  many  philosophical  disquisitions  to  account 
for  it  without  one,  I  accidentally  saw  to-day  a  group 
of  foxes  on  the  floes  about  our  brig,  who  resolved  our 
doubts  by  an  illustration  altogether  simple  and  natural. 

^^ January  22.  On  reaching  the  deck  at  half  past 
eight  this  morning,  after  my  usual  sleepless  night  in 
the  murky  den  below,  I  found  the  horizon  free  from 
cloud  stratus,  and  the  feeble  foreshado wings  of  day 
bathing  the  snow  with  a  neutral  tint.  By  nine  we 
could  see  to  walk ;  and  as  late  as  five  in  the  afternoon, 
the  refracted  twilights  hung  about  the  western  sky. 
How  delicious  is  this  sensation  of  coming  day !  In 
less  than  a  fortnight  the  great  planet  will  be  lifted  by 
the  bountiful  refraction  of  the  Arctic  circle  into  clear 
eye  presence. 

"  I  long  for  day.  The  anomalous  host  of  evils  which 
hang  about  this  vegetation  in  darkness  are  showing 
themselves  in  all  their  forms.  My  scurvy  patients, 
those  I  mean  on  the  sick-list,  with  all  the  care  that  it 
is  possible  to  give  them,  are  perhaps  no  worse ;  but 
pains  in  the  joints,  rheumatisms,  coughs,  loss  of  appe- 
tite, and  general  debility,  extend  over  the  whole  com- 
pany. Fifteen  pounds  of  food  per  diem  are  consumed 
reluctantly  now,  where  thirty-two  were  taken  with 
appetite  on  the  20  th  of  October.  We  are  a  ghastly 
set  of  pale  faces,  and  none  paler  than  myself  I  find 
it  a  labor  to  carry  my  carbine.  My  fingers  cling  to- 
gether in  an  ill-adjusted  ^/ea;ws,  like  the  toes  in  a  tight 
boot,  and  my  long  beard  is  becoming  as  rough  and 
rugged  as  Humphrey  of  Gloster's  in  the  play. 


)wing 
tients, 
that  it 
;  but 
appe- 
com- 
mmed 
with 
Lastly 
llfind 
[ng  to- 
tight 
Ih  and 


ICE-MASSES. 


289 


"  12  M.  The  thermometer  keeps  steadily  at  -20°, 
but  to-day  is  the  coldest  I  have  ever  felt.  It  blows  a 
young  gale.  Brooks  and  myself  have  been  flying 
kites.  The  wind  was  like  prickling  needles,  and  the 
snow  smoked  over  the  moving  drifts. 

"  I  arn  struck  more  and  more  with  the  evidences  of 
gigantic  force  in  the  phases  of  our  frozen  pedragal. 
Returning  from  a  chase  after  an  imaginary  bear,  we 
came  across,  yesterday,  a  suspended  hummock,  so  im- 
posing in  its  form,  that,  half  frozen  as  we  were,  we 
stopped  to  measure  it.     It  was  a  single  table  of  mass- 
ive ice,  supported  upon  a  pile  of  rubbish,  and  inclined 
about  15°  to  the  horizon.     Its  length  was  ninety-one 
feet  six  inches,  its  breadth  fifty-one  feet,  and  its  aver- 
age solid  thickness  eight  feet.    At  its  lower  end  it 
was  seven  feet  above  the  level  of  the  adjacent  floe;  at 
its  upper,  twenty-seven.     The  weight  of  such  a  mass, 
allowing  113  lbs.  to  the  cubic  foot,  would  be  1883  tons. 
I  almost  begin  to  realize  Baron  Wrangell's  account  of 
the  hummocks  on  the  coast  of  Siberia.    We  have  here, 
perhaps,  some  five  hundred  fathoms  of  water:  the  six, 
or  twelve,  or  twenty  fathoms  of  slimy  mud,  that  he 
speaks  of  as  forming  the  inclined  plane  of  the  shore, 
must  facilitate  very  much  the  upheaval  of  ice-tables. 
"10  P.M.  The  wind  has  freshened  to  a  gale  of  the 
first  order,  and  it  howls  outside  like  the  dog-chorus  of 
outer  Constantinople.    But  cheerless  as  these  heavy 
winds  are  in  all  out-of-the-way,  undefended  places,  it 
is  only  when  they  announce  or  accompany  a  change 
of  direction  that  we  fear  them.     So  stable  and  so  elas- 
tic withal  is  the  cementing  effect  of  the  cold  here,  that 
the  strongest  gales  do  not  break  up  the  ice  after  it  has 
been  once  set  in  the  line  of  the  wind.     On  the  other 
hand,  a  trifling  breeze,  if  it  deviates  a  very  few  points 

T 


'■'     i-a 


rw 


Hi 


Ml 


n: 


-ill ' 


'■"?^ 


290 


EFFECTS    OF    NIGHT. 


from  the  axis  of  the  last  set,  puts  every  thing  into  com- 
motion.   - 

^^  January  23.  The  gale  of  last  night  subsided  into 
the  usual  quiet  but  fresh  westerly  breeze,  sometimes 
inclining  to  the  W.N.W.  To-day  is  very  clear ;  the 
stars,  except  one  or  two  of  the  northern  magnatcK^,  in- 
visible at  noonday ;  and  two  or  three  well-marked 
crimson  lines  streaking  the  dawning  zone  above  the 
sun.  The  hills  around  Walter  Bathurst  and  Posses- 
sion Bay,  the  entering  southern  headlands  of  Lancas- 
ter Sound,  have  sunk  in  the  distance.  Two  summits, 
bearing  southwest  by  west,  probably  belonging  to  Pos- 
session Mount,  are  all  that  remains  of  the  coast.  We 
are  more  than  fifty  miles  from  land,  and  still  drifting 
rapidly  to  the  east.  To  the  southwest,  by  compass 
(true  S.E.  i  E.),  little  volumes  of  smoke  have  been  ris- 
ing ;  but  after  a  tolerably  long  walk,  I  could  not  find 
any  further  signs  of  the  open  water.  We  are  now  in 
latitude  73°  10^ 

"  The  daylight  is  very  sensibly  longer :  the  noon 
was  quite  joyous  with  its  little  crimson  flocculi ;  and 
five,  or  even  five  and  a  half  hours  afterward,  when  we 
looked  toward  the  day  quarter,  instead  of  a  grim  black- 
ness, or,  as  we  had  it  more  recently,  a  stain  of  Indian- 
red,  we  saw  the  pale  bluish  light,  so  gratefully  famil- 
iar at  home." 

The  appearances  which  heralded  the  sun's  return 
had  a  degree  of  interest  for  us  which  it  is  not  easy  to 
express  in  words.  I  have  referred  more  than  once  al- 
ready to  the  effects  of  the  long-continued  night  on  the 
health  of  our  crowded  ship's  company.  It  was  even 
more  painful  to  notice  its  influence  on  their  temper  and 
spirits.  Among  the  officers  this  was  less  observable. 
Our  mess  seemed  determined,  come  what  might,  to 


I 


EFFECTS    OF    NIGHT. 


291 


com- 

L  into 
times 
;  the 
jc*,  in- 
arked 
re  the 
*osses- 
ancas- 
nmits, 
to  Pos- 
.    We 
Irifting 
ompass 
een  ris- 
lot  find 
now  in 

le  noon 
i;  and 
[hen  we 
hlack- 
ndian- 
famil- 

return 

[easy  to 

l)nce  al- 

on  the 

IS  even 

3er  and 

Jprvable. 

light,  to 


maintain  toward  each  other  that  honest  courtesy  of 
manner,  which  those  who  have  sailed  on  long  voyages 
together  know  to  be  the  rarest  and  most  difficult  proof 
of  mutual  respect.  There  were  of  course  seasons 
when  each  had  his  home  thoughts,  and  revolved  per- 
haps the  growing  probabilities  that  some  other  Arctic 
search  party  might  seek  in  vain  hereafter  for  a  memo- 
rial of  our  own ;  yet  these  were  never  topics  of  con- 
versation. I  do  not  remember  to  have  been  saddened 
by  a  boding  word  during  all  the  trials  of  our  cruise. 

With  the  men,  however,  it  was  different.  More  de- 
ficient in  the  resources  of  education,  and  less  restrained 
by  conventional  usages  or  the  principle  of  honor  from 
comniunicating  to  each  other  what  they  felt,  all  sym- 
pathized in  the  imaginary  terrors  which  each  one  con- 
jured up.  The  wild  voices  of  the  ice  and  wind,  the 
strange  sounds  that  issued  from  the  ship,  the  hum- 
mocks bursting  up  without  an  apparent  cause  through 
the  darkness,  the  cracks  and  the  dark  rushing  water 
that  filled  them,  the  distorted  wonder-workings  of  re- 
fraction ;  in  a  word,  all  that  could  stimulate,  or  sicken, 
or  oppress  the  fancy,  was  a  day  and  nightmare  dream 
for  the  forecastle. 

We  were  called  up  one  evening  by  the  deck- watch 
to  see  for  ourselves  a  "  ball  of  fire  floating  up  and  down 
above  the  ice-field."  It  was  there  sure  enough,  a  disk 
of  reddish  flame,  varying  a  little  in  its  outline,  and 
fli*;kering  in  the  horizon  like  a  revolving  light  at  a  dis- 
tance. I  was  at  first  as  much  puzzled  as  the  men; 
but  glancing  at  Orion,  I  soon  saw  that  it  was  nothing 
else  than  our  old  dog-star  friend,  bright  Sirius,  come 
back  to  us.  Refraction  had  raised  him  above  the  hills, 
so  as  to  bring  him  to  view  a  little  sooner  than  we  ex- 
pected.    His  color  was  rather  more  lurid  than  when 


f 


.•  i 


(  -it  I 


P-    3' 


,:  \  ■« 

:t  * 

•'"8f 

if 

!*' 

1 

1 

292 


APPROACH    OF     DAY. 


ho  loft  US,  ami  tho  rorraction,  bosidos  distorting  his  out- 
lino,  sooniod  to  havo  jj^ivou  him  tho  same  ohlatonoss  or 
hori/outai  oxpansion  which  wo  obsorvo  in  the  disks 
of  tho  larj^or  planets  when  nearin^  the  horizon. 

For  some  days  the  sun-clouds  at  the  south  had  been 
chan»i^in{jf  their  character.  Their  ed^es  became  better 
defined,  their  extremities  dentated,  their  color  deeper 
as  well  as  warmer;  and  from  the  spaces  between  the 
lines  of  stratus  burst  out  a  bln/e  of  glory,  typical  of  the 
lonjifod-for  sun.  He  came  at  last :  it  was  on  the  2i)th. 
My  journal  nuist  tell  the  story  of  his  welcominjj,  at 
the  hazard  of  its  seemiu}?  extra vajifance :  I  am  content 
that  they  shall  criticise  it  who  have  drifted  for  uiore 
than  twelve  weeks  under  the  niju^ht  of  a  Polar  sky. 

*\faufiari/  29.  Goinjj^  on  deck  after  breakl'ast  at  oiji^ht 
this  uiorning,  1  lound  the  dawning?  far  advanced.  The 
whole  vault  was  bedewed  with  the  cominjr  day ;  and, 
except  Capella,  the  stars  were  gone.  The  southern 
horizon  was  clear.  We  were  certain  to  see  the  sun, 
after  an  absence  of  eighty-six  days.  It  had  been  ar- 
ranged on  board  that  all  hands  should  give  him  three 
cheers  for  a  greeting ;  but  1  was  in  no  mood  to  join 
the  sallow-visagtul  party.  1  took  my  gun,  aiul  walked 
over  the  ice  about  a  mile  away  from  the  ship  to  a  sol- 
itary spot,  where  a  great  big  hummock  almost  hem- 
med me  in,  opening  only  to  tho  south.  There,  Par- 
see  fashion,  1  drank  in  the  rosy  light,  and  watched  the 
horns  of  the  crescent  extending  themselves  round  to- 
ward the  north.  There  was  hardly  a  breath  of  wind, 
with  the  thermometer  at  only  — 19  ■,  and  it  was  easy, 
therefore,  to  keep  warm  by  walking  gently  up  and 
down.  1  thought  over  and  named  aloud  every  one  of 
our  little  circle,  F.  and  M.,  T.  and  P.,  B.  and  J.,  and 
our  dear,  bright  little  W. ;  wondered  a  while  whether 


out- 
ssor 
iisks 

been 
etter 
3eper 
I  the 
)rthe 
29th. 
i\g,  at 
(uteiit 
more 

;ky. 
t  eight 
The 
;  aiul, 
uthern 
10  sun, 
eu  ar- 
1  three 
to  join 
alked 
>  a  sol- 
it  heiu- 
•e,  Par. 
iuhI  the 
AwA  to- 
f  wiiul, 
s  easy, 
[ip  ami 
one  ot* 
J.,  ami 
hether 


SUNIIISE,  NOON,  AND   SUNSKT. 


203 


there  were  not  some  more  to  be  remembered,  and  called 
up  one  friand  or  relative  after  another,  but  always  came 
back  to  the  circle  1  began  with.  My  thoughts  were 
torpid,  not  worth  the  writing  dcwn ;  but  1  was  not 
strong,  and  they  affected  me.  It  was  not  good  '  Polar 
practice.' 

"  Very  soon  the  deep  orimson  blush,  lightening  into 
a  focus  of  incandescent  white,  showed  me  that  the 
hour  was  close  at  hand.  Mounting  upon  a  crag,  I  saw 
the  crews  of  our  one  ship  formed  in  line  upon  the  ice. 
My  mind  was  still  tracing  the  familiar  chain  of  home 
affections,  and  the  chances  that  this  one  or  the  other 
of  its  links  might  be  broken  already.  I  bethought  me 
of  the  Sortes  Virgil  ianic  of  my  school-boy  days  :  I  took 
a  piece  of  candle  pjiper  pasteboard,  cut  it  with  my 
bowie-knife  into  a  little  carbine  target,  and  on  one 
side  of  this  marked  all  our  names  in  pencil,  and  on  the 
other  a  little  star.  Presently  the  sun  came:  never, 
till  the  grave-sod  or  the  ice  covers  me,  may  I  forego 
this  blessing  of  blessings  again !  I  looked  at  him 
thankfully  with  a  great  globus  in  my  throat.  Then 
came  the  shout  from  the  ship — three  shouts — cheering 
the  sun.  1  fixed  my  little  star-target  to  the  floe,  walk- 
ed backward  till  it  became  nearly  invisible ;  and  then, 
just  as  the  completed  orb  fluttered  upon  the  horizon, 
fired  my  *  stilut.^  I  cut  M  in  half,  and  knocked  the  T 
out  of  Tom.  They  shall  draw  lots  for  it  if  ever  I  get 
home ;  for  many,  many  years  may  come  and  go  again 
before  the  shot  of  an  American  rifle  signalizes  in  the 
winter  of  Baffin's  Bay  the  conjunction  of  sunrise,  noon- 
day, and  sunset. 

"  The  first  indicF  ions  of  dawn  to-day  were  at  forty- 
five  minutes  past  five.  By  seven  the  twilight  was 
nearly  sufficient  to  guide  a  walking  party  over  the 


■mm  ;i 


11  il 


'1 


iSm  1 


'■^i 


294 


THERMOMETERS. 


floes.  I  have  described  the  phenomena  at  eight.  At 
nine  the  deck-lantern  was  doused.  By  llh.  14m.  or 
15m.  those  on  board  had  the  first  glimpses  of  the  sun. 
At  5  P.M.  we  had  the  dim  twilight  of  evening. 

"  Our  thermometric  records  on  board  ship  can  not 
be  relied  on.  I  mention  the  fact  for  the  benefit  of 
those  who  may  hereafter  consult  them.  My  wooden- 
cased  Pike  thermometer,  hung  to  a  stanchion  on  the 
northern  beam  of  the  brig,  gave  at  noonday  - 19° ;  ex- 
posed to  the  sun's  rays  on  the  southein,  —14°.  The 
observation  repeated  at  12h.  30m.,  gave  —20°  for  the 
northern,  and  — 15°  for  the  southern  side ;  the  difler- 
ence  in  each  case  being  five  degrees.  The  same  ther- 
mometer, carefully  exposed  about  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  ship,  gave  at  noon,  on  the  north  and  wind- 
ward side,  —21°;  on  the  south,  exposed  to  the  sun, 
— 18° ;  and  at  thirty  minutes  afterward  (nearly),  on  the 
north,  -  20°  5^ ;  toward  the  sun,  — 16°.  The  difference 
in  these  last  observations  of  3°  in  the  fir^t  and  4°  5Mn 
the  second  was  owing  unmistakably  to  the  effect  of  the 
solar  rays.  The  ship's  record  for  th  ^  same  hours  was 
simply  —19°  and  —18°.  The  fact  is,  that  there  is  al- 
ways a  varying  difference  of  two  to  five  degrees  of  tem- 
perature between  the  lee  and  weather  sides  of  the  brig; 
the  quarter  of  the  wind  and  its  intensity,  the  state  of 
our  fires,  the  open  or  shut  hatches,  and  other  minor 
circumstances,  determining  what  the  difference  shall 
be  at  a  particular  time. 

^^  January  30.  The  crew  determined  to  celebrate  *  El 
regresado  del  sol,'  which,  according  to  old  Costa,  our 
Mahonese  seaman,  was  a  more  holy  day  than  Christ- 
mas or  All-Saints.  Mr.  Bruce,  the  diversely  talented, 
favored  us  with  a  new  line  of  theatrical  exhibition,  a 
divertissement  of  domestic  composition,  *  The  Country- 


At 

m.  or 

sun. 

1  not 
fit  of 
loden- 
>n  the 
3;  ex- 
The 
br  the 
differ- 
e  their- 
yards 
wind- 
le  sun, 
,  on  the 
ference 
lo  5'  in 
t  of  the 
irs  was 
e  is  al- 
oftem- 
lehrig; 
tate  of 
minor 
e  shall 

ate 'El 
ta,  our 
Christ- 
"lented, 
tion,  a 
untry- 


THE    PLAY.  295 

man's  first  Visit  to  Town ;'  followed  by  a  pantomime. 
I  copy  the  play-bill  from  the  original  as  it  was  tacked 
against  the  main-mast : 

ARCTIC  THEATRE. 

To  be  perfci-med,  on  the  night  of  Thursday,  the  30th  day  of 
January,  the  Comic  Play  of  the  Countryman.  After  which,  a 
Pantomime. 

To  begin  with 
A  Song By  R.  Bruce. 

THE  OOUNTRTmAN. 

Countryman R.  Baggs. 

Landlady C.  Berry. 

Servant T.  Dunning. 

PANTOniUE. 

Harlequin James  Johnson. 

Old  Man R.  Bruce. 

Rejected  Lover A.  Canot. 

Columbine James  Smith. 

Doors  to  be  opened  at  8  o'clock.    Curtain  to  rise  a  quarter  past  8  punctually. 
No  admittance  to  Children ;  and  no  Ladies  admitted  without  an  escort. 

Stage  Manaqer, 

S.  BENJAMIN. 

The  strictest  order  will  be  observed  both  inside  and  outside. 

We  sat  down  as  usual  on  the  preserved-meat  boxes, 
which  were  placed  on  deck,  ready  strapped  and  beck- 
eted  (nautice  for  trunk-handled)  for  flinging  out  upon 
the  ice.  The  affair  was  altogether  creditable,  how- 
ever, and  every  body  enjoyed  it.  Here  is  an  outline 
of  the  pantomime,  after  the  manner  of  the  newspapers. 
An  old  man  (Mr.  Bruce)  possessed  mysterious,  semi- 
magical,  and  wholly  comical  influence  over  a  rejected 


I' 


'?? 


II 


n 


.•'h 


mlBw  [a 


ti 


II 


:*i 


r^i 


296 


•THE    PLAY. 


lover  (M.  Auguste  Canot,  ship's  cook),  and  Columbine 
(Mr.  Smith)  exercised  the  same  over  the  old  man. 
Harlequin  (Mr.  Johnson),  however,  by  the  aid  of  a 
split-shingle  wand  and  the  charms  of  his  "  motley 
wear,"  secures  the  affections  of  Columbine,  cajoles  the 
old  man,  persecutes  the  forlorn  lover,  and  carries  off 
the  prize  of  love ;  the  fair  Columbine,  who  had  been 
industriously  chewing  tobacco,  and  twirling  on  the 
heel  of  her  boot  to  keep  herself  warm,  giving  him  a 
sentimental  kiss  as  she  left  the  stage.  A  still  more 
sentimental  song,  sung  in  seal-skin  breeks  and  a  "wor- 
wester"  and  a  potation  all  round  of  hot-spiced  rum 
toddy,  concluded  the  entertainments. 
The  thermometer  stood  at  —7°. 


THE   RESCUE,  IN   LANCASTER   SOUND. 


1*1  'iM 


i!'  *:!» 


i">' 


f 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

On  the  2d  of  February  the  sun  rose  up  in  full  disk 
at  a  quarter  before  eleven.  The  atmosphere  was  clear, 
but  filled  with  minute  spiculae.  The  cold  was  becom- 
ing more  intense:  our  ship  thermometers  stood  at 
—32°,  my  spirit  standard  at  —34°,  and  my  mercurial 
at  —38°.  The  ice  that  had  formed  between  the  floes 
since  our  break-up  of  January  12th  was  already  twen- 
ty-seven inches  thick,  and  was  increasing  at  the  rate 
of  five  inches  in  the  twenty-four  hours.  The  floes 
crackled  under  the  intense  frost,  and  we  heard  loud 
explosions  around  us,  which  one  of  our  seamen,  who 
had  seen  land  service  in  Mexico,  compared  very  aptly 
to  the  sound  of  a  musket  fired  in  an  empty  town. 

The  6th  was  still  colder.  At  seven  in  the  evening 
my  spirit  standard  was  at  —40°.  The  day,  however, 
had  been  graced  with  some  hours  of  sunshine,  and  we 
worked  and  played  foot-ball  out  on  the  ice  till  we 
were  many  of  us  in  a  profuse  perspiration.  The  next 
morning  my  mercurial  thermometer  had  frozen,  leav- 
ing its  parting  record  at  —  42° ;  and  at  half  past  eight 
one  of  the  spirit  standards  indicated  the  same  point. 
Up  to  this  period,  it  was  our  lowest  temperature. 
The  frozen  mercury  resembled  in  appearance  lead,  re- 
cently chilled  after  melting.  You  could  cut  the  thin- 
ner edges  easily  enough  with  a  penknife ;  but  where 
it  was  heaped  up,  nearer  the  centre  of  the  solid  mass, 
it  was  tenacious  and  resisting.  I  wished  to  examine 
it  under  the  microscope,  but  was  unable  to  procure  a 
fractured  surface. 


5 


I.. 


rV'l  P 


liiil 


298 


METEORS. REFRACTION. 


.■1'  -..^f 


y^: 


Between  six  and  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  the 
2d,  we  had  a  magnificent  though  nearly  colorless  ex- 
hibition of  the  aurora;  and  on  the  7th,  at  lOh.  20m. 
A.M.,  the  southern  sky  presented  the  appearance  of  a 
day  aurora  attending  on  the  sun.  The  observations 
which  I  made  of  these  two  phenomena  may  be  the 
subject  of  a  distinct  chapter ;  I  will  only  say  here,  that 
it  was  difficult  to  doubt  their  identity  of  character  or 
cause.  We  had  several  displays  of  the  paraselene,  too, 
in  the  earlier  days  of  the  month,  and  an  almost  con- 
staat  deposition  of  crystalline  specks,  which  covered 
our  decks  with  a  sort  of  hoar-frost.  The  rate  of  this 
deposition  on  the  vessel  was  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
in  six  hours ;  but  in  an  ice-basin  on  the  floes,  surround- 
ed by  humm.ocks,  and  thus  protected  from  the  wind,  I 
found  it  nine  inches  deep. 

When  accumulated  in  this  manner,  it  might,  on  a 
hurried  inspection,  be  confounded  with  snow ;  but  it 
differs  as  the  dew  does  from  rain.  It  is  directly  con- 
nected with  radiation,  and  is  most  copious  under  a 
clear  sky.  Snow  itself,  the  flaky  snow  of  a  clouded 
atmosphere,  has  not  been  noticed  by  us  when  the  tem- 
perature was  lower  than  —8°  or  at  most  —10°.  Our 
last  snow-fall  was  on  the  1st  of  February  and  the  day 
preceding.  It  began  with  the  thermometer  at  —  1°, 
and  continued  after  it  had  sunk  to  —9°;  but  it  had 
ceased  some  time  before  it  reached  —13°. 

^^ February  9.  To-day  we  had  a  sky  of  serene  purity, 
and  all  hands  went  out  for  a  sanitary  game  of  romps 
in  the  cold  light.  Presently  three  suns  came  to  greet 
us — strange  Arctic  parhelia — and  a  great  golden  cross 
of  yellow  brightness  uniting  them  in  one  system.  Un- 
der the  glare  of  these  we  played  foot-ball. 

"At  meridian  we  made  a  rough  horizon  of  the  ice, 


irity, 

)mps 

Igreet 

1 cross 

Un- 

ice, 


REFRACTION. 


299 


and  found  ourselves  in  latitude  about  72°  16^  At  this 
time  another  marvel  rose  before  us — Land.  The  mon- 
ster was  to  the  W.S.W.,  in  the  shape  of  two  round- 
topped  hills,  lifted  up  for  the  time  into  our  field  of 
view.  An  hour  or  two  later,  while  the  day  was  wan- 
ing, these  hills  became  mountains,  and  then  a  line  of 
truncated  cones,  the  spectre  of  some  distant  coast. 
Looking  a  few  minutes  later  out  of  the  little  door  in 
our  felt  house,  the  port  gangway  of  the  log-book,  to 
where  for  this  last  fortnight  a  bleak  sameness  of  snow 
has  been  stretching  to  the  far  north,  we  saw  a  couple 
of  icebergs  standing  alone  in  the  sky,  and  at  their 
shadowy  tops  their  phantom  repetitions  inverted.  By 
this  time  the  mountains  also  had  become  twain,  and 
the  long  line  of  resurrected  coast  was  duplicated  in  the 
clouds.  A  stratum  of  false  horizon  separated  the  two 
sets  of  images. 

"We  have  been  now  for  many  months  without  see- 
ing the  icebergs.  They  were  beautiful  objects,  monu- 
ments of  power,  when  we  met  them  on  the  coast  of 
Greenland,  floating  along  on  a  liquid  sea.  Now  they 
admonish  us  only  of  our  helplessness  and  of  perils 
before  us.  We  should  be  glad  to  keep  them  in  the 
clouds. 

"The  sun  begins  to  make  himself  felt,  though  as 
yet  feebly  enough.  My  large  spirit  thermometer,  in 
thp  shade  of  a  hummock  some  hundred  yards  from  the 
brig,  gave  us  at  noon  —21°  5%  and  on  the  sunny  side 
of  the  same  hummock  — 12°.  The  same  thermometer, 
before  a  blackboard  exposed  to  the  sun,  was  at  —7°. 
Twenty  minutes  later,  the  thermometer  at  the  black- 
board rose  to  +2°,  and  twenty  minutes  later  still  it 
was  at  —2°.  The  ice  formed  within  the  twenty-lour 
hours  in  the  fire-hole  measured  four  and  a  quarter 


^ii'  '  I 


!•:  (1 


HI  1"  I 


ii;  ¥: 


|i«: 


300 


THE    DRIFT. 


i  i 


*  *i  i 


inches ;  three  quarters  of  an  inch  less  than  our  meas< 
urements  of  it  a  week  ago.  A  thermometer  plunged 
two  feet  deep  in  a  bank  of  light  snow-drift  indicated 
-12°. 

^^ February  10.  A  hazy  day ;  with  moonlight,  and  a 
drizzling  fall  of  broken  spiculae  following  it.  Mr.  Mur- 
daugh  obtained  observations  for  meridian  altitude  and 
time-sights  of  Aldebaran:  our  latitude  is  72°  19^,  our 
longitude  68°  55' .  The  winds  have  been  unfavorable 
to  the  rapidity  of  our  drift,  which  has  been  reduced  in 
its  rate  since  our  observation  on  the  29th  of  January 
from  five  and  a  quarter  to  four  miles  a  day.  It  may 
be  that  our  approach  to  the  narrower  parts  of  the  bay 
and  the  increased  cold  together  have  been  disturbing 
causes  in  the  movement  of  the  great  pack ;  but  the 
wind  has  been  the  most  important  in  its  influence. 

"  To  look  at  the  completely  unbroken  area  which 
shows  itself  from  our  mast-head,  motion  would  be  the 
last  idea  suggested.  In  Lancaster  Sound  the  chang- 
ing phases  of  the  coast  gave  us  a  feeling  of  progress, 
movement,  drift — that  sensation  of  change  so  pleasing 
to  one's  incomprehensible  moral  mashinery.  But  here, 
with  this  circle  of  impenetrable  passive  solidity  every 
where  around  us,  it  is  hard  to  realize  that  we  move. 
But  for  the  stars,  my  convictions  of  rest  would  be  ab- 
solute. Yet  we  have  thus  traveled  upward  of  three 
hundred  miles.  I  shall  not  soon  forget  this  inevitable 
march,  with  its  alternations  of  gloomy  silence  and 
fierce  disruptions. 

^'■February  11,  Wednesday.  Day  very  hazy,  and 
nothing  to  interrupt  its  monotony.  It  requires  an  ef- 
fort to  bear  up  against  this  solemn  transit  of  unvary- 
ing time. 

"  I  will  show  you  how  I  spend  one  of  these  days — 


ROUTINE    LIFE. 


301 


the 


and 

In  ef- 

rary- 


that  is,  all  of  them.  It  is  the  only  palliation  I  can 
offer  for  my  meagreness  of  incident.  As  for  the  study 
we  used  to  talk  about— even  you,  terrible  worker  as 
you  are,  could  not  study  in  the  Arctic  regions. 

"  Within  a  little  area,  whose  cubic  contents  are  less 
than  father's  library,  yon  have  the  entire  abiding-place 
of  thirty-three  heavily-clad  men.  Of  these  I  am  one. 
Three  stoves  and  a  cooking  galley,  four  Argand  and 
three  bear-fat  lamps  burn  with  the  constancy  of  a  vest- 
al shrine.  Damp  furs,  soiled  woolens,  cast-oflf  boots, 
sick  men,  cookery,  tobacco-smoke,  and  digestion  are 
compounding  their  effluvia  around  and  within  me. 
Hour  by  hour,  and  day  after  day,  without  even  a  bunk 
to  retire  to  or  a  blanket-curtain  to  hide  me,  this  and 
these  make  up  the  reality  of  my  home. 

"Outside,  grim  death,  in  the  shape  of  —40°,  is  try- 
ing— most  foolishly,  I  think — to  chill  the  energy  of 
these  his  allies.  My  bedding  lies  upon  the  bare  deck, 
right  under  the  hatch.  A  thermometer,  placed  at  the 
head  of  my  cot,  gives  a  mean  temperature  of  64° ;  at 
my  feet,  under  the  hatchway,  +16°  to  —4° — ice  at  my 
feet,  vapor  at  my  head.  The  sleeping-bunks  aft  range 
from  70°  to  93° ;  those  forward,  regulated  by  the  med- 
ical officer,  from  60°  to  65°. 

"  We  rise,  the  crew  at  six  bells,  seven  o'clock,  and 
the  officers  at  seven  bells,  half  an  hour  later.  Thus 
comports  himself  your  brother.  He  sits  up  in  the 
midst  of  his  blankets,  and  drinks  a  glass  of  cold  water; 
eyes,  nose,  and  mouth  chippy  with  lampblack  and 
undue  evaporation.  Oh !  how  comforting  this  water 
is !  That  over,  a  tin-basin,  in  its  turn,  is  brought  round 
by  Morton,  mush-like  with  snow ;  and  in  this  mixt- 
ure, by  the  aid  of  a  hard  towel,  with  a  daily  regular- 
ity that  knows  no  intermission,  he  goes  over  his  entire 
skeleton,  frictionizing. 


302 


ROUTINE    LIFE. 


■:'*if 


"This  done,  comes  the  dressing — the  two  pairs  of 
stockings,  the  thre3  under-shirts,  the  fur  outer  rohing, 
and  the  seal-skin  boots ;  and  then,  with  a  hurried  cough 
of  disgust  and  semi-suffocation,  he  is  on  deck.  There 
the  air,  pure  and  sharply  cold,  now  about  26°  or  30^, 
last  week  40°  below  zero,  braces  you  up  like  peach 
and  honey  in  a  Virginia  fog,  or  a  tass  of  mountain 
dew  in  the  Highlands.  Then  to  breakfast.  Here 
are  the  mess,  with  the  fresh  smell  of  overnight  undis- 
turbed, and  on  our  table  griddle  cakes  of  Indian  meal, 
hominy,  and  mackerel :  with  hot  coffee  and  good  ap- 
petites, we  fall  to  manfully, 

"  Breakfast  over,  on  go  the  furs  again ;  and  we  es- 
cape from  the  accumulating  fumes  of '  servants'  hall,' 
walking  the  floes,  or  climbing  to  the  tops,  till  we  are 
frozen  enough  to  go  below  again.  One  hour  spent  now 
in  an  attempt  at  study — vainly  enough,  poor  devil ! 
But  he  does  try,  and  what  little  he  does  is  done  then. 
By  half  past  ten  our  entire  little  band  of  officers  are 
out  upon  the  floes  for  a  bout  at  anti-scorbutic  exercise, 
a  game  of  romps :  first  foot-ball,  at  which  we  kick  till 
our  legs  ache ;  next  sliding,  at  which  we  slide  until 
we  can  slide  no  more :  then  off,  with  carbine  on  shoul- 
der, and  Henri  as  satellite,  on  an  ice-tramp. 

"Coming  back,  dinner  lags  at  two.  Then  for  the 
afternoon — God  spare  the  man  who  can  with  un- 
scathed nose  stand  the  eflluvium.  But  night  follows 
soon,  and  with  it  the  saddening  question,  "What  has 
the  day  achieved  ?  And  then  we  stretch  ourselves  out 
under  the  hatches,  and  sleep  to  the  music  of  our  thirty 
odd  room-mates. 

^'February  14,  Friday.  A  glorious  day,  with  the  sun 
from  nine  to  half  past  two.  Three  bergs  seen  by  re- 
fraction.  The  mercury  rose  to  +2  over  a  black  surface 
turned  toward  the  sun.     To-day  the  usual  foot-ball. 


THE    COLD. 


303 


the 
un- 

lOWB 

has 

out 

liity 

sun 
re- 
Iface 
III. 


"  Our  Arctic  theatre  gave  us  to-night  '  The  Myste- 
ries and  Miseries  of  New  York,'  followed  hy  a  panto- 
mime. The  sitting  temperature  was  —20° ;  that  out- 
side, -36° ;  behind  the  scenes,  -25°.  A  flat-iron  used 
by  the  delicate  Miss  Jem  Smith  gave  the  novel  the- 
atrical eflect  of  burning  by  cold.  Poor  Jem  suffered 
so  much  in  her  bare  sleeves  and  hands,  that  whenever 
the  iron  touched  she  winced.  Cold  merriment ;  but 
it  concluded  with  hotchpot  and  songs. 

^^ February  15,  Saturday.  Another  glorious  day;  the 
sun  visible  from  9  A.M.  to  3  P.M.,  and  embanked  dur- 
ing the  rv^maining  time.  Much  to  our  surprise,  at  the 
moment  of  setting,  a  startling  ridge  of  mountain  peaks 
rose  into  sight  to  the  westward.  Their  distance,  as  es- 
timated by  the  latest  charts,  was  no  less  than  76  miles. 

^''February  22,  Saturday.  '  Some  things  can  be  done 
as  well  as  others :'  so  at  least  Sam  Patch  said,  when 
he  scrambled  up  after  his  jump  at  Niagara.  I  walked 
myself  into  a  comfortable  perspiration  this  morning, 
with  the  thermometer  at  —42°,  seventy-four  degrees 
below  the  freezing  point.  My  walk  was  a  long  one. 
When  about  three  miles  from  the  brig,  a  breeze  sprang 
up :  it  was  very  gentle ;  but  instantly  the  sensation 
came  upon  me  of  intense  cold.  My  beard,  coated  be- 
fore with  massive  icicles,  seemed  to  bristle  with  in- 
creased stiffness.  Henri,  who  walked  ahead,  began 
to  suffer :  his  nose  was  tallow  white.  Before  we  had 
rubbed  it  into  circulation,  my  own  was  in  the  same 
condition ;  and  an  unfortunate  hole  in  the  back  of  my 
mitten  stung  like  a  burning  coal.  We  are  so  accus- 
tomed to  cold  that  I  did  not  suffer  during  our  walk 
back,  though  it  was  more  than  an  hour  of  hummock 
crossing. 

"  The  sensation  most  unendurable  of  these  extreme- 


Ml 


ttM 


I' 'J 


!  M. 


'     I      J 


304 


THE    BIRTH-DAY. 


ly  low  temperatures  is  a  pain  between  the  eyes  and 
over  the  forehead.  This  is  quite  severe.  It  remind- 
ed  me  of  a  feeling  which  I  have  had  from  over-large 
quantities  of  ice-cream  or  ice- water,  held  against  the 
roof  of  the  mouth.  I  reached  the  brig  in  a  fine  glow 
of  warmth,  having  skated,  slid,  and  made  the  most  of 
my  time  in  the  open  air. 

"An  increased  disposition  to  scurvy  shows  itself 
Last  week  twelve  cases  of  scorbutic  gums  were  not- 
ed at  my  daily  inspections.  In  addition  to  these,  I 
have  two  cases  of  swelled  limbs  and  extravasated 
blotches,  with  others  less  severely  marked,  from  the 
same  obstinate  disease.  The  officers  too,  the  cap- 
tain, Mr.  Lovell,  and  Mr.  Murdaugh,  complain  of 
stiff  and  painful  joints  and  limbs,  with  diarrhoea  and 
impaired  appetite:  the  doctor  like  the  rest.  At  my 
recommendation,  the  captain  has  ordered  an  increased 
allowance  of  fresh  food,  to  the  amount  of  two  com- 
plete extra  daily  ration,  per  man,  with  potatoes,  saur- 
kraut,  and  stewed  apples;  and  we  have  enjoined  more 
active  and  continued  daily  exercise,  more  complete 
airing  of  bedding,  &c.  I  have  commenced  the  use 
of  nitro-muriatic  acid,  as  in  syphilitic  and  mercurial 
cases,  by  external  friction. 

"  The  state  of  health  among  us  gives  me  great  anx- 
iety, and  not  a  little  hard  work.  Quinine,  the  salts 
of  iron,  &c.,  &c.,  are  in  full  requisition  For  the  first 
time  I  am  without  a  hospital  steward. 

"  It  is  Washington's  birth-day,  when  '  hearts  should 
be  glad;'  but  we  have  no  wine  for  the  dinner-table, 
and  are  too  sick  for  artificial  merriment  without  it. 
Our  crew,  however,  good  patriotic  wretches,  got  up  a 
theatrical  performance,  '  The  Irish  Attorney ;'  Pierce 
O'Hara  taken  by  the  admirable  Bruce,  our  Crichton. 


THE     COLD. 


305 


anx- 

salts 

first 

lould 
table, 
lut  it. 
up  a 
*ierce 
Ihton. 


The  ship's  thermometer  outside  was  at  —46°.  Inside, 
among  audience  and  actors,  by  aid  of  lungs,  lamps, 
and  housings,  we  got  as  high  as  30°  below  zero,  only 
sixty-two  below  the  freezing  point! !  probably  the  low- 
est atmospheric  record  of  a  theatrical  representation. 

"It  was  a  strange  thing  altogether.  The  conden- 
sation was  so  excessive  that  we  could  barely  see  the 
performers :  they  walked  in  a  cloud  of  vapor.  Any 
extra  vehemence  of  delivery  was  accompanied  by  vol- 
umes of  smoke.  The  hands  steamed.  When  an  excit- 
ed Thespian  took  off  his  hat,  it  smoked  like  a  dish  of 
potatoes.  When  he  stood  expectant,  musing  a  reply, 
the  vapor  wreathed  in  little  curls  from  his  neck.  This 
was  thirty  degrees  lower  than  the  lowest  of  Parry's 
North  Georgian  performances. 

^''February  23,  Sunday.  Mist  comes  back  to  us. 
After  our  past  week  of  glorious  sunshine,  this  return 
to  murkiness  is  far  from  pleasing.  But  it  might  be 
worse  :  one  month  ago,  and  a  day  like  this  would  have 
made  our  winter-stricken  hearts  bound  with  gladness. 

"Caught  a  cold  last  night  in  attending  the  theatre. 
A  cold  here  means  a  sudden  malaise,  with  insufferable 
aches  in  back  and  joints,  hot  eyes,  and  fevered  skin. 
We  all  have  them,  coming  and  going,  short-lived  and 
long-lived :  they  leave  their  mark  too.  This  Arctic 
work  brings  extra  years  upon  a  man.  A  fresh  wind 
makes  the  cold  very  unbearable.  In  walking  to-day, 
my  beard  and  riustache  became  one  solid  mass  of  ice. 
I  inadvertently  put  out  my  tongue,  and  it  instantly 
froze  fast  to  my  lip.  This  being  nothing  new,  costing 
only  a  smart  pull  and  a  bleeding  abrasion  afterward, 
I  put  up  my  mittened  hands  to  '  blow  hot'  and  thaw 
the  unruly  member  from  its  imprisonment.  Instead 
of  succeeding,  my  mitten  was  itself  a  mass  of  ice  in  a 

U 


!r.  -fi: 


%\l 


■i\  li 


V  ^^  i'  m 

•I    ■■»l''  j  .■ 
1» ,'      >  ■■     '. 


■^! 


i'      ' 


I'- 


i  'y 


306 


SNOW-RUBBING. 


inoment :  it  fastened  on  the  upper  side  of  my  tongue, 
and  flattened  it  out  like  a  batter-cake  between  the 
two  disks  of  a  hot  griddle.  It  required  all  my  care, 
with  the  bare  hands,  to  release  it,  and  that  not  without 
laceration. 

^^  February  25.  A  murky  day.  Two  hundred  and 
forty-four  fathoms  of  line  gave  no  bottom  at  the  air- 
hole. Scurvy  getting  ahead.  Began  using  the  rem- 
nant of  our  fetid  bear's  meat :  nasty  physic,  but  we 
will  try  it.  It  is  colder  to-day,  with  the  wind  and  fog 
at  —15°,  than  a  few  days  ago  at  —46°.  Wind  south 
by  east :  sun  not  seen. 

^^  February  26,  Wednesday.  The  sun  came  back 
again  with  such  vigor,  that  my  spirit  standard  rose 
over  black  to  -i  14°  ;  my  glass — cased,  to  +35°.  The 
difference  between  shade  and  sunshine  is  30° :  a  ther- 
mometer freely  suspended  in  shade  and  in  sun  gave 
—  32°  and  —2°.  Black  surfaces  begin  to  scale  off 
their  snowy  covering,  not  by  thawing  attended  by 
moisture,  but  with  a  manifest  diminution  in  the  te- 
nacity and  adhesiveness  of  the  snow.  We  observe 
these  indications  of  returning  heat  closely. 

"  The  scurvy  has  at  last  fairly  extended  to  our  own 
little  body,  the  officers.  Pains  in  the  limbs,  and  deep- 
seated  soreness  of  the  bones,  seem  to  be  its  most  com- 
mon demonstration.  The  complaint  is  of  *  a  sort  of 
tired  feeling,'  or  as  if  '  they  had  had  a  beating.'  Our 
usual  supper,  the  saur-krout,  has  become  excessively 
popular.  Even  the  abused  bear  is  not  quite  as  bad  as 
it  was. 

"  The  crew  have  been  snow-rubbing  their  blankets. 
The  snow  is  so  fine  and  sand-like,  that  under  these 
low  Arctic  temperatures  it  acts  mechanically,  and  is 
an  effectual  cleanser.     Withal,  if  you  beat  it  M'ell  out 


THE    INSECT. 


307 


Lets, 
these 
id  is 
llout 


of  the  tissue,  it  is  not  a  damp  application.  The  only 
trouble  is  that,  on  taking  the  bedding  below,  the  con- 
densation covers  it  with  dew-drops.  With  drying-lines 
on  the  lower  decks,  the  resort  would  be  excellent. 

"  The  setting  sun,  now  fast  approaching  the  home 
quarter  of  setting  suns,  the  west,  gave  us  again  the 
spectral  land  about  Cape  Adair,  eighty  miles  off. 

"  Sirius  is  beautifully  resplendent  on  the  meridian. 
What  a  fine  exhibition  it  is !  As  it  rises  from  the 
banked  horizon,  it  gives  us  nightly  freaks  of  terrestrial 
refraction.  Its  colors  are  blue,  crimson,  and  white ;  its 
shapes  oval,  hour-glass,  rhomboid,  and  square.  Some- 
times it  is  extinguished  ;  sometimes  flashing  into  sud- 
den life :  it  looks  very  like  a  revolving  light. 

"  To-day,  in  putting  my  hand  inside  my  reindeer 
hood,  1  felt  a  something  move.  The  something  had 
a  crepitating,  insectine  wriggle.  Now,  at  home  and 
every  where  else,  without  being  a  nervous  man  as  to 
insects — for  I  have  eaten  locusts  in  Sennaar  and  bats 
in  Dahomey — I  rather  dislike  the  crawl  of  centipede 
or  slime  of  snail.  Here,  with  an  emotion  hard  to  de- 
scribe, surprise,  pleasure,  and  a  don't-know-why  won- 
derment, I  caught  my  bug  gently  between  thumb  and 
finger. 

"An  air  insect  would  be,  in  this  dreary  waste  of 
cold,  an  impossibility  greater  than  the  diamond  in  the 
snow-drift.  Save  a  seal  and  a  fox,  nothinjr  sharing 
our  principle  of  vitality  has  greeted  us  for  months. 
The  teeming  myriads  of  life  which  characterize^^  the 
Arctic  summer  have  gone.  The  anatidsB  are  clamor- 
ing in  the  great  bays  and  water-courses  of  the  middle 
south.  The  gulls  have  sought  the  regions  of  open 
water.  The  colymbi  and  Auks  are  lining  the  north- 
ern coasts  of  my  own  dear  home.    The  croaking  raven. 


|r,   I 


308 


THE    SCURVY. 


).  irf 


.if' 


il    1: 


dark  bird  of  winter,  clings  to  the  in-shore  deserts.  The 
tern  are  far  away,  and  so  thank  Heaven,  are  the 
musquitoes.  There  are  no  bugs  in  the  blankets,  no 
nits  in  the  hair,  no  maggots  in  the  cheese.  No  specks 
of  life  glitter  in  the  sunshine,  no  sounds  of  it  float 
upon  the  air.  We  are  without  a  single  sign,  a  single 
instinct  of  living  thing. 

"  If  now,  with  the  thermometer  eighty  degrees  be- 
low the  freezing  point,  and  the  new  sun  casting  a 
cold  gray  sheen  upon  the  snow,  you  leave  the  thirty- 
one,  to  whom  you  are  the  thirty-second,  and  walk  out 
upon  the  ice  away  off — so  far  that  no  click  of  hammer 
nor  drone  of  voice  places  you  in  relation  with  that 
little  outside  world — then  you  will  know  how  I  felt 
when  I  caught  that  'creeping  wonder'  on  my  rein- 
deer hood.     It  was  a  frozen  feather. 

"i^^irwary  27,  Thursday.  An  aurora  passing  through 
the  zenith,  east  and  west,  at  3h.  30m.  this  morning. 
What  little  wind  we  have  is  coming  feebly  from  the 
west  and  southwest.  The  thermometer  has  traveled 
from  —40°  to  —31°,  and  the  sun  is  out  again  in  benign 
lustre.  A  difference  of  27°,  due  to  his  influence,  was 
evident  as  early  as  lOh.  20m.,  viz. :  Green's  spirit 
standard  gave,  in  shade,  —33°;  over  black  surface,  in 
sunshine,  —7°  and  —6°.  At  noonday,  the  same  ther- 
mometer gave  +2.  My  glass — cased,  hot-house  like, 
gave  the  pleasant  deception  of  +40°. 

"  Still  the  scurvy  increases.  I  am  down  myself  to- 
day  with  all  the  premonitories.  It  is  strangely  de- 
pressing :  a  concentrated  *  fresh  cold '  pain  extends 
searchingly  from  top  to  toe.  I  am  so  stift'  that  it  is 
only  by  an  effort  that  I  can  walk  the  deck,  and  that 
limpingly.  Once  out  on  the  floes,  my  energies  excited 
and  my  blood  warmed  by  exercise,  I  can  tramp  away 
freely;  back  again,  I  stiffen. 


OUR    COOKS. 


309 


"Walked  with  our  other  cook,  Auguste  Canot. 
Queer  changes  these  Frenchmen  see !  Canot's  father, 
a  captain  in  the  French  army,  was  shot  while  serving 
with  Oudinot,  beneath  the  infernal  '  barricades '  oi' 
Rome — Canot  the  younger  looking  on.  A  few  months 
after,  the  son  had  figured  upon  the  list  of  condemned 
for  the  affair  at  Lyons,  and  was  a  fugitive  emigre  to 
the  United  States.  The  same  sergeant-major,  Canot, 
is  now  cooking  al  junk  in  Baffin's  Bay.  His  con- 
frere, the  modest  but  gifted  Henri,  although  a  worse 
soldier,  is  a  better  cook.  He  first  saw  ice  among 
the  glaciers  of  La  Tour.  He  has  scuUionized  at  the 
*  Trois  Freres,^  and  played  chef  to  a  London  club- 
house. He  passed  through  this  latter  ordeal,  strange 
to  say,  unscathed ;  and,  but  for  an  amorous  tempera- 
ment, might  be  now  at  Delmonico's,  upon  good  wages 
and  bad  Bordeaux.  Henri  is  a  boy  of  talent,  pen- 
sive by  temperament,  and  withal  ambitious.  Were 
it  not  for  the  somewhat  unequal  distribution  of  two 
molars  and  an  incisor,  his  entire  stock  of  teeth,  he 
would  be  an  insufferable  coxcomb.  As  it  is,  he  treats 
his  infirmity  with  amiable,  if  not  philosophic  con- 
tempt. He  made  me  this  morning  an  idea  of  white 
bear's  liver,  a  la  brochette.  The  idea  was  good,  the 
liver  hippuric  and  detestable.  Henri  prides  himself 
upon  that  most  difficult  simplicity,  the  Jilet.  He  pre- 
pares  thus  a  sea-gull  a  merveille. 

^^Fehruary  28,  Friday.  The  most  wintery-looking 
day  I  have  ever  seen.  The  winds  have  been  let  loose, 
and  the  cheering  novelty  of  a  northwester  breaks  in 
on  our  calm.  The  drifting  snow  either  rises  like  smoke 
from  the  levels,  or  whirls  away  in  wreaths  from  the 
hummocks.  The  atmosphere  has  an  opaline  ashy 
look ;  in  the  midst  of  which,  like  a  huge  girasole,  flash- 


U'-^  .* 


i''-^ 


mM 


m  t 


310 


EXERCISE. 


es  the  round  sun.  The  clouds  are  of  a  sort  seldom 
seen,  except  in  the  conceptions  of  adventurous  artists, 
quite  undefinable,  and  out  of  the  line  of  nature,  defy- 
ing Howard's  nomenclature.  They  are  blocked  out 
in  square,  stormy  masses,  against  a  pearly,  misty  blue 
— harsh,  abrupt,  repulsive,  quite  out  of  keeping  with 
the  kindly  lightness  of  things  belonging  to  the  sky." 

The  lowest  temperature  we  recorded  during  the 
cruise  was  on  the  2 2d  of  this  month,  when  the  ship's 
thermometer  gave  us  —46°;  my  offship  spirit,  —52°; 
and  my  own  self-registering  instruments,  purchased 
from  Green,  placed  on  a  hummock  removed  from 
the  vessels,  —53°,  as  the  mean  of  two  instruments. 
This  may  be  taken  as  the  true  record  of  our  lowest 
absolute  temperature. 

Cold  as  it  was,  our  mid-day  exercise  was  never  in- 
terrupted, unless  by  wind  and  drift  storms.  We  felt 
the  necessity  of  active  exercise ;  and  although  the  ef- 
fort was  accompanied  with  pains  in  the  joints,  some- 
times hardly  bearable,  we  managed,  both  officers  and 
crew,  to  obtain  at  least  three  hours  a  day.  The  ex- 
ercise consisted  of  foot-ball  and  sliding,  followed  by 
regular  games  of  romps,  leap-frog,  and  tumbling  in 
the  snow.  By  shoveling  away  near  the  vessel,  we 
obtained  a  fine  bare  surface  of  fresh  ice,  extremely 
glib  and  durable.  On  this  we  constructed  a  skating- 
ground  and  admirable  slides.  I  walked  regularly  over 
the  floes,  although  the  snows  were  nearly  impassable. 

With  all  this,  aided  by  hosts  of  hygienic  resources, 
feeble  certainly,  but  still  the  best  at  my  command, 
scurvy  advanced  steadily.  This  fearful  disease,  so 
often  warded  off  when  in  a  direct  attack,  now  exhib- 
ited itself  in  a  cachexy,  a  depraved  condition  of  sys- 
tem sad  to  encounter.    Pains,  diffuse,  and  non-loca- 


THE     SCURVY. 


311 


table,  were  combined  with  an  apathy  and  lassitude 
which  resisted  all  attempts  at  healthy  excitement. 

These,  of  course,  were  not  confined  to  the  crew 
alone  :  out  of  twenty-four  men,  but  five  were  without 
ulcerated  gums  and  blotched  limbs ;  and  of  these  five, 
strange  to  say,  four  were  cooks  and  stewards.  All  the 
officers  were  assailed.  Old  pains  were  renewed,  old 
wounds  opened ;  even  old  bruises  and  sprains,  received 
at  barely-remembered  periods  back,  came  to  us  like 
dreams.  Our  commander,  certainly  the  finest  consti- 
tution among  us,  was  assailed  like  the  rest.  In  a  few 
days  purpuric  extravasations  appeared  on  his  legs,  and 
a  dysentery  enfeebled  him  to  an  extent  far  from  safe. 
An  old  wound  of  my  own  became  discolored,  and,  cu- 
rious to  say,  painful  only  at  such  points  of  old  suppu- 
ration, three  in  number,  as  had  been  relieved  by  the 
knife.  The  seats  of  a  couple  of  abscess-like  openings 
were  entirely  unaffected  and  free  from  pain. 

The  close  of  the  month  found  this  state  of  things  on 
the  increase,  and  the  strength  of  the  party  still  waning. 


8'    i 


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lilJMAI.Nil  OF   A  Cma. 


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Mill  • 


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AURORA  SEEK  SOUTH  OP  CAPK  KAHKWELL. 


T    f 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

It  might  be  supposed,  at  first  view,  that  the  acces- 
sion of  solar  light  would  he  accompanied  by  increase 
of  temperature.  This,  however,  was  far  from  being 
the  case.  Though  February  had  brought  back  the 
sun,  it  was  the  first  month  throughout  which  the  ice- 
fields remained  frozen  in  their  wintery  rest.  It  was 
our  coldest  month.  This  effect  was  due  to  the  great- 
ly increased  evaporation  ;  a  subject  of  frequent  notice 
in  my  journal,  confirming  in  this  the  experience  of 
Ermann  and  other  Siberian  travelers. 

The  renewed  alternation  of  day  and  night,  with 
their  increased  range  of  diurnal  temperatures,  gave  us 
in  full  perfection  those  different  forms  of  meteoric  ex- 
hibition which  affect  peculiarly  the  Arctic  zone.  The 
aurora,  with  a  host  of  phenomena  dependent  upon  the 
modifications  of  light,  halos,  coronas,  tangent  circles, 
parhelia,  anthelia,  and  paraselena3,  came  to  us  in  rap- 


METEORS. 


313 


idly-varying  succession;  and  refraction,  with  its  pre- 
ternatural augmentation  of  the  visual  hemisphere,  re- 
visited us  under  new  and  startling  forms. 

The  scintillation  of  the  stars,  that  phenomenon  so 
connected  with  alternating  changes  in  the  refractive 
media,  was  wonderfully  apparent.  The  fixed  stars, 
whose  distance  made  the  least  displacement  sensible 
to  the  eye,  were  especially  influenced ;  yet  even  the 
planets  shared  in  the  change,  and  twinkled  like  the 
stars  at  home.  I  have  alluded  to  the  gorgeous  changes 
of  Sirius  and  Aldebaran ;  but  these  descriptions  give 
a  feeble  index  of  their  Protean  varieties  of  shape  and 
color,  which,  with  every  grade  of  intensity,  greeted  us 
nightly. 

The  red  coloring  of  the  clouds  reminded  me  of  the 
rose-tints  of  the  Alps.  Cirro-cumuli  of  every  imagin- 
able form  began  again  to  deck  the  horizon.  The  twi- 
light  too,  that  long  Arctic  crepusculum,  seemed,  con- 
trary to  theory,  to  be  disproportionally  increased  in  its 
duration.  Eighteen  degrees  is  certainly  a  very  arbi- 
trary limit  to  its  extent.  How  noble  a  field  for  re- 
search would,  with  intellectual  capacity,  adequate  in- 
struments, and  sympathizing  co-operation,  have  been 
the  ice-plain  of  Baffin's  Bay  ! 

The  auroras  to  the  north  and  northeast  of  the  Amer- 
ican magnetic  pole  are  not  the  brilliant  displays  de- 
scribed by  Biot  and  Lottin  in  Northern  Europe,  or  the 
English  explorers  in  Canadian  America.  Those  of 
Lancaster,  Wellington,  Prince  Regent's,  and  the  North 
Baffin  waters,  partake  of  the  same  general  character ; 
and  though  somewhat  modified  perhaps,  did  not,  as  I 
observed  them,  differ  materially  from  those  described 
by  Fisher  and  Parry.  This  last  great  navigator  con- 
stantly expresses  his  disappointment  at  the  feebleness 


ill 


.1 


1 1 11 


'  I  '* 


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/  1 1- 


U'<u>  i  yii 


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i)''i 


HI- 


■i     SI 


314 


AURORAS. 


"•  :i"    ' 


r-  " 


■(  ■  '<. 


;,■'( 


of  the  auroral  displays,  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
Northern  Atlantic,  on  the  European  side.  I  had  the 
same  feeling. 

Their  changes  seemed  to  be  dependent  upon  modi- 
fications rather  of  intensity  than  form.  They  were 
characterized  by  neither  active  movement  nor  varied 
coloring.  My  tabuhir  observations  will  be  published 
elsewhere,  but  I  subjoin  a  rude  attempt  at  analysis  of 
their  distinctive  features. 

1st.  A  mere  illumination,  apparently  emerging  from 
a  dark  cloud  some  five  degrees  above  the  horizon, 
more  resembling  a  nebulous  patch  or  a  moonlight  cir- 
rus than  the  auroral  light. 

2d.  Detached  bands  of  illumination,  impressed 
against  the  sky,  like  a  condensed  nebulosity,  uncon- 
nected with  any  visible  central  arc,  and  distributed 
near  about  the  line  of  the  magnetic  axis  between  the 
horizon  and  the  zenith.  These  were  sometimes  strat- 
iform, converging  by  perspective,  and  reminding  one 
of  the  auroral  plates,  plaques  auroraies  of  Lottin. 

3d.  A  well-marked  zone  or  band,  or  sometimes  sev- 
eral concentric  ones,  either  broken  or  continuous,  un- 
accompanied by  the  ordinary  segments  of  light  or 
cloud,  passing  through  or  near  the  zenith  in  a  direc- 
tion which,  according  to  the  mean  of  some  fourteen 
observations,  was  sixteen  degrees  east  of  the  magnetic 
meridian.  These  bands  were  constantly  varying,  not 
by  active  scintillation,  but  by  changes  of  intensity — 
rapid  flashing  augmentation,  sudden  subsidence,  or 
complete  extinction — a  wavy  oscillation,  resembling 
wind  action. 

4th.  Bistre-colored  clouds,  assuming  a  segmentary 
or  arch-like  form,  and  tlirowing  out  rays  of  white 
light;  these  streaming  toward  the  zenith,  and  some- 


AURORAS. 


315 


PS  sev- 
[s,  un- 
fht  or 
direc- 
irteen 
jnetic 
|g,  not 
>ity — 
Ice,  or 
[ibling 

bntary 
(white 
Isoiiie- 


times  across  to  the  opposite  horizon,  with  more  of 
coruscating  movement  than  any  other  form.  It  was 
somewhat  remarkable,  that  of  six  such  displays  ob- 
served in  October  and  February,  every  one  was  in  the 
direction  of  the  sun,  then  not  more  than  eight  degrees 
below  the  horizon,  and  in  one  instance  above  it — a 
true  daylight  aurora.  These  jets,  although  not  col- 
ored, might  be  looked  upon  as  rudimentary  forms  of 
those  dependent  rays,  now  recognized  by  observers  as 
corresponding  in  direction  with  the  local  magnetic 
inclination. 

If  we  regard  these  forms  as  characterizing  generally 
the  auroras  of  this  region,  we  can  not  help  being  struck 
with  their  departure  from  the  indications  observed  by 
Lieut.  Hood,  in  the  Franklin  Expedition  of  1820.  His 
observations  may  be  referred  to  two  general  classes. 
The  first  commencing  with  arches,  either  to  the  east 
or  west  of  the  magnetic  meridian,  or  coincident  with 
it,  .sometimes  four  or  five  in  number,  rising  in  concen- 
tric series,  and  never  less  than  5°  in  altitude:  these, 
upon  reaching  the  zenith,  become  broad,  irregular 
streams,  never  crossing  each  other,  but  coruscating 
with  a  rapid  interior  motion,  rich  with  chromatic  dis- 
plays. 

Those  of  the  second  class  propagate  themselves  from 
points  of  the  compass  between  the  north  and  west, 
toward  the  opposite  quarters,  or  sometimes  from  the 
southeast,  and  extending  themselves  to  the  northwest: 
they  are  arch-like  in  form ;  with  beaming  wreaths,  flash- 
ing "merry  dancers,"  and  jets  of  pea-green,  purple, 
and  violet  light,  like  the  spark  in  an  exhausted  re- 
ceiver. But  in  both  classes  the  arches  are  in  a  plane 
seldom  deviating  more  than  two  points  from  the  mag- 
netic meridian.  Mr.  Hood  has  not  described  a  vibra- 
tory motion  without  colors. 


mi  I  ^ 


n^d'  ^'  "^ 


1  I; 


fe#tl 


316 


THE    AURORA. 


■>'-■■  a' 


::i3  u 


In  the  auroras  seen  by  the  American  Expedition,  a 
distinct  scintillation  was  rare ;  and  I  observed  a  pris- 
matic tinting  in  only  a  single  instance.  The  move- 
ments of  the  anroral  bands  were  so  wave-like  that 
they  were  at  once  suggestive  of  wind-action,  although 
no  correspondence  was  noted  between  them  and  the 
direction  of  the  lower  atmospheric  currents.  This  ef- 
fect, which  I  had  repeated  occasion  to  observe,  height- 
ened the  resemblance  of  our  Arctic  aurora  to  illumin- 
ated cirro-stratus,  and,  I  confess,  always  impressed  me 
with  its  want  of  altitude. 

Let  me  condense  from  my  Journal  and  Meteorolog- 
ical llecord  a  description  of  the  aurora,  as  we  some- 
times saw  it. 

The  2d  of  February  came  to  us  with  sunshine,  the 
atmosphere  in  yellow  light,  and  full  of  minute  spicu- 
lae;  our  thermometers  at  32°,  my  spirit  standard  at 
34°,  and  Green's  mercurial  at  38°.  Drawing  the  fin- 
ger through  the  mercury  of  our  artificial  horizon  gave 
the  sensation  of  scalding  water.  The  evaporation  and 
increased  dryness  were  very  perceptible:  a  brass  cli- 
nometer, which  was  coated  with  hoar-frost,  became 
perfectly  clean  on  exposure  to  the  solar  ray.  The 
haze  disappeared  from  the  southern  horizon,  and  the 
sky  became  strikingly  clear.  As  late  as  half  past  eight 
A.M.,  I  saw  the  North  Star  in  the  zenith,  the  tail  of 
the  Bear,  and  stars  of  the  third  and  fourth  magnitude. 
By  nine  every  one  had  gone,  leaving  Arcturus  and 
Capella  in  possession  of  the  field. 

Between  the  hours  of  six  and  eight  P.M.,  we  had 
an  interesting  display  of  the  aurora.  It  was  of  a  lu- 
minous white,  not  much  more  marked  than  any  of 
the  isolated  nebulas  seen  through  a  telescope,  which 
it  indeed  resembled.     This  white  light  stretched  in 


THE    AURORA. 


317 


cumulated  masses  from  the  northwest  to  the  south- 
eastern horizon,  forming  to  the  northward  an  arch  of 
some  regularity.  From  the  inner  circumference  of 
this  great  arch  proceeded  a  series  of  scintillating  proc- 
esses, at  apparent  right  angles  to  the  plane  of  the 
horizon,  and  constantly  shifting  their  positions,  so  as 
to  produce  an  effect  nearly  like  that  of  the  "  merry  dan- 
cers." To  the  south,  however,  the  arch  became  irreg- 
ular and  changing;  its  diameter  varied  from  five  to 
thirty  degrees,  the  augmentation  being  by  a  broken 
series  of  parallel  bands,  no  one  exceeding  six  or  eight 
degrees. 

At  the  period  of  its  greatest  intensity,  7h.  10m.,  it 
enveloped  Procyon  and  the  Pleiades,  obscuring  the 
larger  portion  of  Taurus,  and  actually  hiding  Alde- 
baran.  A  process  extended  obliquely  from  about 
twelve  degrees  above  the  horizon  to  Castor  and  Pol- 
lux, whose  brightness  it  sensibly  dimmed.  The  zone 
then  narrowed,  passing  about  eleven  degrees  to  the 
west  of  Polaris,  and  ascending  in  a  regular  arch  to 
the  northwest.  It  faded  gradually,  and  by  9h.  20m. 
had  disappeared.  Neither  a  silk-suspended  magnetic 
needle  nor  our  rude  electrometers  detected  any  dis- 
turbance. 

The  foggy  segment  which  forms  the  characteristic 
feature  of  the  incipient  aurora,  as  observed  by  Biot, 
Mairan,  Lottin,  and  others,  was  in  a  rudimentary  form 
visible  with  us.  The  deep  bistre-colored  arc,  which 
I  have  arbitrarily  spoken  of  as  No.  4,  is  in  many  of  its 
features  analogous  to  that  of  the  Shetland  and  Bosse- 
kop  OLservations. 

The  well-known  aurora  of  Mairan  begins  with  a 
dark  mist  or  foggy  cloud  to  the  northward,  not  unlike 
the  "bistre-colored  segment,"  taking  gradually  an  arc- 


:;.«■' ''h^  ■■! 


ir  -;     i. : 


i!l 


t'm  \\ 


mtdl 


!i: 


318 


THE    AURORA. 


Mo 


-u 


11 


'\0. 


y  '.  r 

-.1 


like  form.  The  visible  portion  of  this  arc  soon  be- 
comes surrounded  with  a  pale  light,  followed  by  the 
formation  of  other  concentric  arcs:  next  come  jets  and 
colored  rays  from  the  dark  part  of  the  segment,  break- 
ing up  its  continuity,  and  indicating  a  general  move- 
ment throughout  its  mass — "  internal  shocks,"  as  Lard- 
ner  calls  them — which  issue  from  it  as  flames  from  a 
conflagration. 

Lottin's  observations  at  Bossekop,  in  Finland,  lati- 
tude 70°,  which  embrace  no  less  than  a  hundred  and 
forty-five  exhibitions,  begin  with  a  "  tinting  of  the 
constantly  prevailing  sea-fog,"  the  upper  border  of 
which  was  fringed  with  auroral  light. 

If  these,  and  the  more  familiar  accounts  of  the  au- 
rora in  the  middle  United  States,  be  taken  as  good 
types  of  this  phenomenon,  I  would  say  that  the  ma- 
tured Arctic  aurora  resembled  their  incipient  stages; 
but  that  the  same  law  of  correspondence,  which  marks 
the  centre  of  the  segment  in  or  about  the  magnetic 
axis,  gave  to  us,  situated  as  we  were  in  the  immediate 
proximity  of  the  magnetic  pole  of  our  earth,  the  strange 
spectacle  of  a  complete  arch  passing  through  or  near 
the  zenith,  and  embracing  an  amplitude  of  nearly 
one  hundred  and  eighty  degrees.  The  zone  or  band- 
like character  of  this  auroral  arch  was  its  pervading 
characteristic.  It  seldom  exceeded  thirty,  and  was 
generally  within  ten  degrees  in  width,  a  floating,  wav- 
ing band  of  nebulous  illumination. 

The  likeness  between  some  of  the  auroral  appear- 
ances and  a  lower  range  of  meteorological  phenomena 
has  been  repeatedly  noticed.  The  bandes  polaires  of 
Humboldt,  the  plaques  aurorales  of  Lottin,  the  cirro- 
cumulated  resemblances  of  Hood  and  Richardson,  are 
among  these :  and  I  have  alluded  more  than  once  my- 


DAY    AURORA. 


319 


self  to  the  apparent  wind-movements  of  our  exhibi- 
tions in  Lancaster  Sound. 

I  have  quoted  the  "fog  or  cloud-like  segment" 
as  forming  a  prominent  feature  in  the  Continental 
descriptions,  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  from  my 
journal  two  anomalous  exhibitions  of  aurora  in  the 
same  connection.  One  was  in  direct  conjunction  with 
the  diffracted  solar  ray ;  the  other  a  true  daylight  au- 
rora.    I  give  them  verbatim  from  my  notes. 

^^ February  7.  Cold  and  clear:  thermometer,  at  8h. 
40m.  A.M.,  at  38°,  while  on  the  vessel's  stern;  and  at 
42°  when  freely  suspended  by  the  bows  outside:  my 
Green's  spirit  standard,  some  fifty  paces  from  the  ves- 
sel, at  —48°:  one  more  illustration  of  the  local  influ- 
ences of  ship-board,  and  of  the  irregularity  of  our  sys- 
tem of  registration. 

"  The  sun  was  completely  visible  at  about  ten 
A.M.;  but  his  rays  were  subdued  by  a  slight  hazi- 
ness, caused  by  myriads  of  crystallized  specks  that 
filled  the  atmosphere.  These,  when  examined  by 
my  traveling  Frauenhofer  at  two  hundred  diameters, 
gave  in  some  few  cases  regular  hexagonal  prisms, 
with  well-defined  terminations ;  but  this  symmetry  of 
form  was  generally  obscured  by  groupings,  and  long 
oblique  truncations,,  I  have  now  made  eight  careful 
examinations  of  these  crystalline  spiculae  at  varying 
temperatures,  when  they  came  to  us  accompanied  by 
parhelia,  halos,  or  anomalous  columns  proceeding  from 
the  sun.  In  every  case  there  was  a  decided  approach 
to  the  six-sided  form. 

"  The  sun  to-day  exhibited  an  unusual  phenomenon. 
At  lOh.  20m.,  while  very  low,  a  column  of  light  was 
observed  stretching  from  the  upper  summit  of  its  disk 
to  an  approximate  height  of  15°.    This  expanded,  fan- 


r  ,|  U  HI 


H 


ill  ■ ' 


life-   i 


:  m- 


320 


DAY    AURORA. 


fashion,  as  it  rose,  and  was  lost  by  its  penciled  radia- 
tions blending  with  the  illuminated  sky.  Thus  far  it 
did  not  differ  materially  from  the  vertical  or  crepuscu- 
lar rays  accompanying  rudimentary  forms  of  parhelia. 
But  by  eleven  o'clock  this  fan-like  column  had  en- 
larged to  a  cloudy  shaft  of  bright  yellow  light,  twen- 
ty to  twenty-four  degrees  in  height,  and  proceeding 
from  a  complete  segment  of  illumination,  which  was 
thickly  studded  with  cirrous  clouds.  The  upper  ter- 
minus of  this  column,  unlike  the  parhelia  which  we 
had  seen  before,  assumed  a  curvilinear  wedge  shape, 
not  unlike  the  section  of  a  pear,  from  whose  sides  rose 
tangentially  a  series  of  penciled  illuminations  termin- 
ating in  streaks  of  cloud  strata. 

"  The  feature  about  this  phenomenon  of  greatest  in- 
terest was  a  distinct  play  of  light,  a  series  of  coruscat- 
ing changes  resembling  the  scintillations  of  the  auro- 
ra. The  rays  which  shot  out  from  the  three-curved 
summit  somedmes  extended  twelve  or  fifteen  degrees, 
with  a  sudden  movement  of  increased  energy  almost 
resembling  ignition :  then  again  they  retired,  until  rep- 
resented by  but  a  few  feeble  points.  The  cloud-like 
segment  showed  in  a  lesser  degree  the  same  move- 
ments ;  and  at  the  periods  of  most  active  display,  the 
vertical  or  fan-like  shaft  flashed  up  into  more  intense 
illumination.  The  diameter  of  this  shaft  at  its  en- 
tering base  could  not  have  been  less  than  eighty  de- 
grees." 

This  singular  exhibition  recalled  irresistibly  the  an- 
alogous  phenomena  of  the  aurora,  with  those  anomal- 
ous displays  of  coronae  which  have  been  referred  to 
the  diffraction  of  light  by  atmospheric  vesicles  or  icy 
spiculse.  I  give  it  from  my  notes,  as  a  simple  detail 
of  facts,  without  comment  or  opinion. 


Its  en- 
de- 

le  an- 
lomal- 
red  to 
)r  icy 
letail 


DAY    AURORA. 


321 


A  daylight  aurora  has  been  described  by  other  ob- 
servers. I  witnessed  several,  one  of  them  interesting 
enough  to  be  worth  transcribing. 

"About  ten  o'clock,  going  out  to  exercise  at  foot- 
ball, I  noticed  that  the  usual  cloud-bank  of  the  hori- 
zon had  nearly  cleared  away  at  the  south.  One  or 
two  feathery  cirri  hung  about  the  zenith,  and  the  north- 
em  horizon  retained  its  usual  deep  obscurity.  This 
was  in  the  course  of  my  usual  cursory  examination  for 
my  weather  record.  Half  an  hour  after,  I  observed  one 
spot  where  the  banking  remained,  attracting  attention 
by  its  nearness  to  the  sun  and  its  well-defined  seg- 
mentary character.  Its  margin  was  distinctly  and  reg- 
ularly arched ;  its  tinting  a  peculiar  purple,  slightly 
warmed  or  bronzed  at  its  margins,  but  deepening  into 
a  heavy  brown  at  the  line  of  the  horizon.  The  centre 
of  the  segment  bore  south  twenty  degrees  west  (mag- 
netic), its  altitude  eight  degrees,  nearly .  Smoko  and 
vapor  from  ship's  fires,  purple-tinted ;  distant  objects 
not  very  clearly  visible;  atmosphere  filled  with  ice 
spiculae. 

"  Soon  from  the  circumference  of  this  arch  proceed- 
ed a  fimbriated  or  fringy  series  of  purple  cirri,  delicate- 
ly tinted  at  their  edges,  increasing  with  wonderful  reg- 
ularity, and  extending  in  long,  ray-like  processes  of 
cloud  to  an  altitude  of  some  twenty  degrees  above  the 
horizon.  Before  eleven  o'clock  these  processes  had 
become  long,  stratiform  illuminated  clouds,  beautifully 
marked,  of  a  breadth,  measured  roughly  by  the  eye, 
of  four  or  five  degrees,  interrupted  where  they  crossed 
the  illuminated  region  of  the  sun,  but  every  where  else 
extending  over  the  heavens  to  the  south  and  west 
(true) ;  and  although  still  diminishing  in  intensity,  ex- 
tending nearly  to  the  eastern  quarter  of  the  sky.    By 


,■  i  > 


ihj' 


i 


I.    1  • 


P'tii  I  i 


SK 


,  'If;' 


^*!r 


322 


DAY     AURORA. 


coalescing  at  their  bases,  these  radiating  processes  aug- 
mented the  size  of  the  central  segment.  The  inter- 
vals  between  them  appeared,  by  contrast,  to  be  artifi- 
cially illuminated. 

"  Till  now  there  had  been  no  movement ;  but  at 
llh.  20m.  these  cloud-like  processes  or  radiations  strik- 
ingly resembled  the  rays  or  beams  of  a  coruscating 
auroral  arch.  Dr.  Vreeland  and  myself  witnessed  re- 
peatedly interruptions  of  their  continuity ;  then  sud- 
den shootings  out,  or  increasings  of  their  length ;  and 
then  a  rapid  and  momentary  formation,  followed  by  a 
sudden  and  complete  disappearance. 

"At  this  time,  too,  a  strange  wavy  movement  was 
seen  about  the  shorter  prolongations  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  vertex  of  the  mass.  These  resembled  the 
rising  wreaths  of  'frost-smoke'  seen  in  Wellington 
Channel,  and  had  an  appearance  almost  of  combus- 
tion. 

"  During  all  these  phases,  the  cloud-like  character 
was  singularly  preserved :  the  rays  appeared  to  modi- 
fy the  processes,  as  light  would  behind  our  ordinary 
clouds.  The  whole  exhibition  was  a  daylight  one, 
perfectly  cloud-like,  differing  only  in  the  elements  of 
shape,  movement,  and  radiated  illumination.  It  was 
a  day  aurora. 

The  appearance  continued  until  twenty  minutes  of 
meridian.  At  llh.  10m.,  when  it  was  at  its  maxi- 
mum, the  rayed  prolongations  stretched  nearly  across 
the  sky ;  and  the  centre  of  the  mass  from  which  they 
emanated  was  fifteen  degrees  west  from  the  south 
pole  of  the  needle.  At  about  the  same  deviation,  viz., 
N.  by  E.  i  E.,  and  at  a  rude  altitude  of  about  fifteen 
or  twenty  degrees,  was  an  irregular  cirro-cumulated 
cloud  of  the  same  purple  tint,  but  not  so  much  illu- 


DAY    AURORA. 


323 


ininated.  From  its  eastern  margin,  rays  or  processes 
were  seen  stretching  as  high  as  fifty  degrees,  and  &» 
far  as  due  east. 

"  Before  the  sun  had  reached  his  meridian  altitude, 
the  prolongations  had  become  faint,  and  passed  into 
detached  feathery  clouds,  which  collected  at  the  ze- 
nith and  lost  the  radiated  arrangement  altogether. 
The  mass  of  cloud  stratus  to  the  south  (magnetic), 
also,  had  blended  with  the  usual  bank  about  the  ho- 


rizon. 


vv  ';;:^'ri-'i"i 


1  ';-  .n,.. 


fit 


*■    * 


1-    <r 


I;  1 


f  %^m 

■?  ""I    ; 


ii  11^ 


i'  "-i  I: 


:.  r.  ^ 


THE   RESCUfi   IN    HEK    ICE-DOCK. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 


Our  brig  was  still  resting  on  her  cradle,  and  her 
consort  on  the  floe  a  short  distance  off,  when  the  first 
month  of  spring  came  to  greet  us.  We  had  passed 
the  latitude  of  72°. 

To  prepare  for  our  closing  struggle  with  the  ice- 
fields, or  at  least  divide  its  hazards,  it  was  determined 
to  refit  the  Hescue.  To  get  at  her  hull,  a  pit  was 
sunk  in  the  ice  around  her,  large  enough  for  four  men 
to  work  in  at  a  time,  and  eight  feet  deep,  so  as  to  ex- 
pose her  stern,  and  leave  only  eighteen  inches  of  the 
keel  imbedded.  This  novel  diy-dock  answered  per- 
fectly. The  hull  was  inspected,  and  the  work  of  re- 
pair was  pressed  so  assiduously,  that  in  three  days  the 
stern-post  was  in  its  place,  and  the  new  jowsprit  ready 
for  shipping.  We  had  now  the  ch-vnces  of  two  ships 
again  in  case  of  disaster. 

Since  the  middle  of  February  the  felt  housing  of  our 
vessel  had  shown  a  disposition  to  throw  off"  its  snowy 
crust.  There  was  an  apparent  recession,  or,  rather, 
want  of  adhesion  about  it,  that  spoke  of  chanji,e.  But 
it  was  not  till  the  7th  of  March  that  we  witnessed  an 


TREATMENT    OF    SCURVY. 


325 


actual  thaw.  On  the  black  planking  of  the  brig's 
quarter,  in  full  sun  glare,  the  snow  began  to  move, 
and  fell,  leaving  a  moist  stain.  This  was  either  evap- 
orated or  frozen  instantly ;  but  still  it  had  been  there,, 
unequivocal  moisture.  A  sledge,  too,  alongside  the- 
vessel,  kept  laden  to  meet  emergencies,  with  a  black 
felt  cover,  gave  on  its  southern  side  a  warm  impres- 
sion to  the  unmittened  hand;  and  several  drops  of 
water  rolled  from  its  mounting  of  snow,  and  formed 
in  minute  icicles. 

With  these  cheering  signs  of  returning  warmth 
came  a  sensible  improvement  in  my  cases  of  scurvy. 
I  ascribed  it  in  a  great  degree  to  the  free  use  of  saur* 
kraut  and  lime-juice,  and  to  the  constant  exercise 
which  was  enforced  as  part  of  our  sanitary  discipline. 
But  I  attributed  it  also  to  the  employment  of  hydro- 
chloric  acid,  applied  externally  with  friction,  and  taken 
internally  as  a  tonic.  The  idea  of  this  remedy,  hith- 
erto, so  far  as  I  know,  unused  in  scurvy,  occurred  to 
me  from  its  eflfects  in  cachectic  cases  of  mercurial 
syphilis.  I  am,  I  fear,  heterodox  almost  to  infidelity 
as  to  the  direct  action  of  remedies,  and  rarely  allow 
myself  to  claim  a  sequence  as  a  result ;  but,  accord- 
ing to  the  accepted  dialectics  of  the  profession,  the 
chlorohyd.  dilut.  may  be  recommended  as  singularly 
adapted  to  certain  stages  of  scorbutis. 

The  great  difficulty  that  every  one  has  encountered 
in  treating  this  disease  is  in  the  reluctance  of  the  pa- 
tient to  rouse  himself  so  as  to  excite  the  system  by 
cheerful,  glowing  exercise,  and  in  the  case  of  seamen, 
to  control  their  diet.  My  ingenuity  was  often  taxed 
for  expedients  to  counteract  these  predispositions. 
Some  that  I  resorted  to  were  ludicrous  enough. 

James  Stewart,  with  purpuric  blotches  and  a  stiff 


,11 


'A  I  ill 


live- 


'mt\ 


I 


111 


!^   V 


WW-  f 


K& 


i 


';       )? 


...  ■  T 


326 


TREATMENT    OF    SCURVY. 


knee,  had  to  wag  his  leg  half  an  hour  hy  the  dial,  op- 
posite a  forraidahle  magnet,  each  wag  accompanied 
by  a  shampooing  knead.  Stewart  had  faith ;  the  mus- 
cular action,  which  I  had  enjoined  so  often  ineffectu- 
ally, was  brought  about  by  a  bit  of  steel  and  a  smear 
ing  of  red  sealing-wax.     They  cured  him. 

Another,  remarkable  for  a  dirty  person,  of  well 
used-up  capillary  surface,  a  hard  case — one  of  a  class 
scarcely  ever  seen  by  any  but  navy  doctors — sponged 
freely  and  regularly  from  head  to  foot  in  water  col- 
ored brown  by  coffee,  and  made  acid  with  vinegar. 
His  gums  improved  at  once.  He  would  never  have 
washed  with  aqua  fontana. 

Another  set  of  fejlows  adhered  pertinaciously  to 
their  salt  junk  and  hard  tack,  ship  bread  and  beef. 
These  conservative  gentlemen  gave  me  much  trouble 
by  repelling  vegetable  food.  The  scurvy  was  playing 
the  very  deuce  with  them,  when  the  bright  idea  oc- 
curred to  me  of  converting  the  rejected  delicacies  into 
an  abominable  doctor-stuff.  It  was  an  appeal  to  their 
spirit  of  martyrdom :  they  became  heroes.  Three 
times  a  day  did  these  high-spirited  fellows  drink  a 
wine  glass  of  olive-oil  and  lime-juice,  followed  by  raw 
potato  and  saur-kraut,  pounded  with  molasses  into  a 
damnable  electuary.     They  ate  nobly,  and  got  well. 

But  the  causes  of  scurvy  were  relaxing  their  ener- 
gies only  for  the  time.  Before  the  month  was  out, 
the  disease  had  come  back  with  renewed  and  even 
exacerbated  virulence.  Some  of  its  phases  were  cu- 
rious. The  joint  of  Captain  De  Haven's  second  finger 
became  the  seat  of  severe  pain,  accompanied  by  a  dis- 
tinct tubercle  cartilaginous  to  the  touch.  It  exactly 
recalled,  he  said,  the  appearance  and  feeling  of  the 
part  for  some  months  after  it  had  been  hurt  by  a 


Jii; 


METEORS. 


327 


schoolmaster's  ruler  twenty-five  years  before.  One  of 
the  crew  had  his  tongue  completely  excoriated.  An* 
other,  who  had  lost  a  molar  tooth  seven  years  ago, 
spit  from  the  cavity  a  conoidal  wedge:  I  had  no 
chance  of  examining  it  by  the  microscope;  but  an 
impression  of  the  cavity  in  wax  showed  the  sides  per- 
fectly smooth,  and  the  vertex  intersected  by  lines  of 
ossification.  I  have  spoken  already  of  my  lance  mark 
in  the  groin :  it  had  been  healed  some  three  years ; 
but  it  now  threatened  suppuration  again  wherever  it 
bore  the  marks  of  the  surgeon's  knife. 

We  had  unfortunately  almost  exhausted  our  supply 
of  antiscorbutic  drinks,  and  were  driven  to  the  manu- 
facture of  substitutes  not  always  the  most  palatable. 
One  of  them,  which  served  at  least  as  a  vehicle  for 
lime-juice  and  muriate  of  iron,  was,  however,  a  rec- 
ognized exception.  It  was  a  beer,  of  which  a  rem- 
nant of  dried  peaches  and  some  raisins,  with  barley 
and  brown  sugar,  formed  the  fermenting  basis.  The 
men  drank  it  in  most  liberal  quantities. 

On  the  10th  we  1  a,u  an  exhibition  of  the  day  aurora 
again j  less  brilliant  than  the  one  I  have  described  a 
few  pages  back,  but  quite  well  marked.  It  was  fol- 
lowed at  night  by  the  paraselene.  Another  atmos- 
pheric display,  which  occurred  a  few  days  afterward, 
attracted  more  notice. 

^^ March  13.  Again  a  day  of  bright  sunshine,  but  to 
my  feelings  colder  than  our  lowest  temperatures.  The 
thermometer  stood  at  —24°  in  the  shade  at  noon,  and 
the  wind  was  very  light.  Yet  there  was  a  cutting 
asperity  about  it  that  made  your  face  tingle — a  sensa- 
tion as  if  evaporation  was  going  on  under  the  skin — 
quite  a  painful  one.  At  four  in  the  afternoon  the 
atmosphere  was  studded  with  glistening  particles.     I 


'!ii 


.  iiil*' 


i  m 


«iii'.,dfi 


,,i  i> 


4: 


It      r, 

MI,    ||^ 


3  iff 


.',-   |f 


11      '       \ 


328 


METEORS. 


have  never  seen  them  so  manifest  and  so  numerous^ 
Our  slide,  a  polished  surface  of  clear  ice,  became 
clouded  in  a  few  minutes,  and  before  five  o'clock  it 
was  perfectly  white.  The  microscope  gave  me  the 
same  broken  hexagonal  prisms,  mixed  with  tables 
closely  resembling  the  snow-crystal.  A  haze  sur- 
rounded the  horizon,  rising  for  some  six  degrees  in  a 
bronzed,  purple  bank ;  after  which  it  gradually  blend- 
ed with  the  sky,  a  clear  blue,  undisturbed  by  cirri. 

"Accompanying  this  redundancy  of  atmospheric 
spiculaB  was  a  parhelion  of  remarkable  intensity. 
There  was  no  halo  round  the  sun,  and  no  vertical 
or  horizontal  column;  but  at  the  distance  of  22°  04' 
from  the  sun's  centre  were  three  solar  imager,  one  on 
each  side,  and  the  other  immediately  above  the  sun. 
This  latter  image  was  intensely  luminous,  but  not 
prismatic;  the  others  had  the  rudiments  of  an  arc, 
highly  colored,  the  red  upon  the  inner  margin.  The 
haze  rose  as  high  as  these  horizontal  images ;  and  the 
arc,  which  in  so  short  a  segment  presented  no  visible 
curvature,  expanded  as  it  descended,  so  as  to  form  an 
elongated  pyramid  or  column,  the  prismatic  tints  in- 
creasing in  intensity  as  they  approached  the  horizon. 
The  effect  of  this  was  that  of  two  illuminated  beacons 
or  rainbow  towers,  the  sun  blazing  between  them. 
As  we  stood  a  little  way  off"  on  the  ice,  it  was  very 
beautiful  to  see  the  brig,  with  its  spars  and  rigging 
cutting  like  ttacery  against  the  central  light,  with 
these  prismatic  structures  on  each  side,  capped  by  a 
spectral  sun." 

Two  evenings  later,  the  parhelia  gave  us  another 
spectacle  of  interest.  Two  mock  suns,  which  had  ac- 
companied the  sun  below  the  horizon,  sent  up  an  il- 
luminated and  colored  arc  some  eight  or  ten  degrees 


APOLOGY. 


329 


in  height.  Midway  rose  a  brush-like  column  of  crim- 
son (baryta)  light.  A  series  of  flame-colored  strata, 
alternating  with  an  incomprehensible  black  cloud,  was 
so  completely  eclipsed  by  the  vertical  column,  that  it 
seemed  to  cut  its  way  without  a  diminution  of  its 
brightness.  The  whole  atmosphere  was  as  warmly 
tinted  as  in  the  evenings  of  Melville  Bay. 

Indeed,  from  the  beginning  of  the  month,  the  skies 
had  undergone  a  sensible  change  of  aspect.  Instead 
of  the  heavy-banked  or  linear  stratus  about  the  hori- 
zon, and  the  light,  cold  cirri  above,  we  were  getting 
back  to  something  like  the  fall  skies  of  our  own  cli- 
mate, the  misty  bands  of  morning  becoming  fleecy  as 
the  day  wore  on,  and  taking  the  marbled  or  mackerel 
character  before  they  blended  with  the  western  skies. 

I  am  tempted  to  apologize,  once  for  all,  for  the  im- 
perfect character  of  these  observations.  Our  stock  of 
instruments  on  board  was  scanty  at  the  best,  and  the 
routine  observances  of  a  ship  of  war  do  not  favor  the 
prosecution  of  merely  scientific  researches.  We  had 
no  actinometer  to  mark  the  daily  increments  of  solar 
radiation :  our  thermometers  were  generally  of  rude 
construction,  and  were  not  so  placed  as  to  give  the 
highest  value  to  their  results ;  and  an  entry  which  I 
find  in  my  journal  explains  why  my  barometrical  rec- 
ords were  so  few. 

"  March  12.  To-day,  for  the  first  time  during  the 
cruise,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  our  mountain  ba- 
rometer released  from  its  stowage,  and  an  attempt 
made  to  compare  it  with*  our  aneroids.  Before  we  be- 
gan our  drift  to  the  north,  when  we  had  no  fires  below 
to  give  us  a  constantly  vibrating  temperature,  and  the 
aneroid  of  the  Rescue  had  not  come  into  the  over- 
crowded cabin  of  our  vessel  to  divide  the  formalities 


m 


% 


■iH 


'4 


N  ii  fj 


I  fe 


fcr  I', 


330 


THE    DRIFT. 


m*u 


i\  >-' 


:■  "^f 


Mm 


it; 


'•  ^m 

Mii'M 

'  •' 

I  -' V[ 

wii  ' 

^^m^vii 

lii'^l 

1^*3  • 

^^H^^^^HjHB  1 

|l 

Kf  ! 

■IJRI 

BmB    I 

j 

iK^aglf"  '>     J 

iH^H 

d^HSj        : 

) 

iHfBln):iiIi.:  ,i   1 

1^ 

Bij   '"''ijlIlN-.]. 

■1 

k 

■1151  ..in 

of  registration  with  our  own,  it  might  have  been  well 
to  make  a  careful  comparison  of  the  two  with  those  of 
the  British  vessels,  and  with  our  mountain  barometer 
also.  The  index  error  of  this  instrument  on  its  zero 
point  could  have  been  adjusted  then  by  reference  to 
others  that  were  just  from  Greenwich,  and  it  would 
have  been  practicable,  perhaps,  to  give  something  of  in- 
creased value  to  our  log-book  records  of  the  atmospher- 
ic pressure.  Under  all  the  circumstances,  I  have  not 
thought  it  necessary  to  transfer  them  to  my  journal." 

As  the  middle  of  March  approached,  our  drift  be- 
came gradually  slower,  until  we  almost  reached  a  state 
of  rest.  For  several  days  we  advanced  at  an  average 
rate  of  scarcely  half  a  mile  a  day.  We  were  at  this 
time  some  seventy  miles  east  of  Cape  Adair,  our  near- 
est Greenland  shore  being  somewhere  between  Upper 
Navik  and  Disco ;  and  the  idea  of  encountering  the 
final  break-up  among  the  closely-impacted  masses  that 
surrounded  us,  or  of  being  carried  back  to  the  north 
by  some  inopportune  counter-current,  was  far  from 
pleasant.  But  our  log-line,  in  an  attempt  at  sound- 
ings, showed  still  a  marked  under-draught  toward  the 
south  ;  and  in  a  few  days  more  we  were  moving  south- 
ward again  with  increased  velocity. 

The  19th  gave  us  a  change  of  scene.  I  was  aroused 
from  my  morning  sleep  by  the  familiar  voice  of  Mr. 
Murdaugh,  as  he  hurried  along  the  half-deck :  "  Ice 
opening" — "  Open  leads  off'  our  starboard  quarter" — 
"Frost-smoke  all  around  us!"  Five  minutes  after- 
ward, Henri  had  been  summoned  from  the  galley;  and, 
carbine  in  hand,  I  was  tumbling  over  the  hummocks. 

After  a  heavy  walk  of  half  a  mile,  sure  enough  there 
it  was — the  open  lead  —  stretching  with  its  film  of 
forming  ice  far  in  a  narrowing  perspective  to  the  east 


THE    LEAD. 


331 


and  west.  Balboa  himself  never  looked  out  upon  an 
ocean  with  more  grateful  feelings  than  I  did  upon  this 
open  chasm,  the  first  inbreak  upon  complete  solidity 
which  we  had  known  since  the  15th  of  January.  It 
was  a  breach  in  our  prison-walls.  The  undulatory 
movement  of  the  mercury  and  the  varied  appearance 
of  the  clouds  were  now  explained.  Although  only  dis- 
covered this  morning,  the  rupture  must  have  been  go- 
ing on  for  days,  perhaps  a  week.  Our  winds  had  fa- 
vored the  separation  of  cracks  into  wide  channels ;  but 
how  such  changes  could  have  taken  place  puzzled 
me. 

rhe  ice,  as  shown  by  my  measurements,  was  from 
four  to  eight  feet ;  and  even  now,  when  I  recall  the 
fearful  sounds  which  accompanied  the  Lancaster  Sound 
commotions,  I  can  hardly  realize  that  such  extensive 
chasms  should  have  been  formed  almost  in  silence. 
We  could  only  guess  what  had  been  the  extent  of  our 
ice-field  at  this  time.  Baffin's  Bay  was  nearly  three 
hundred  miles  across,  and  the  field  may  have  been 
twice  as  long  in  the  other  direction.  Perhaps  the  wave 
action  of  a  heavy  sea,  great  sub-glacial  billows,  unfelt 
at  our  fast-cemented  little  vessel,  may  have  broken  the 
tables  without  the  crash  and  tumult  of  a  collision. 

The  lead  where  I  first  reached  it,  to  the  southeast 
of  our  brig,  was  nearly  three  hundred  yards  across ; 
not,  however,  three  hundred  yards  of  open  water,  but 
a  separation  between  the  two  sides  of  the  original  floe 
of  about  that  distance.  The  sides  still  showed  their 
clean-edged  fracture,  diversified  by  drift  and  hummock, 
and  rising  above  the  intervening  level,  like  the  banks 
of  a  tideless  river,  margined  by  new  ice  and  crusted 
with  efflorescing  snow.  But  at  its  further  or  sou.  ':ern 
side,  a  long  strip,  narrow  and  very  black,  gave  evi- 


» <ti     S,    V' 


41' . I   ?■•       !Sl 


1^  ■   t      \\ 


Kvii;; 


n 


"1    I     f  ,        :lli 


i 

■■1 

^k 

uM>v 

J 

milt  i 


332 


THE     LEAD. 


dence  of  open  water.  In  this,  surrounded  by  exhal- 
ing mist  and  frost-smoke,  were  our  old  friends,  the  seal ; 
grave,  hirsute-looking  fellows,  who  rose  out  of  the  wa- 
ter breast-high,  and  gazed  upon  us  with  the  curious 
faces  of  old  times.  Near  them  was  a  solitary  dovekie, 
dressed  in  its  gray  winter  plumage,  the  first  bird  I  had 
seen  for  days ;  here,  too,  had  crossed  the  tracks  of  a* 
bear. 

All  this  was  very  cheering.  To  see  something,  no 
matter  what,  checkering  the  waste  of  white  snow,  was 
like  a  shady  grove  to  men  sun-tired  in  a  prairie  ;  but 
to  see  life  again — life,  tenanting  the  desolate  air  and 
inhospitable  sea — was  a  spring  of  water  in  the  desert. 
My  old  hostility  to  gun-murder  was  forgotten.  I  wast- 
ed, of  course,  some  small  remnant  of  poetic  sympathy 
with  fellow-life  thus  springing  up  out  of  the  wilder- 
ness ;  but  then,  in  the  midst  of  my  sympathies,  came 
the  destructive  instinct  which  longed  to  make  it  sub- 
servient to  my  wants.  The  scurvy,  the  scurvy  pa- 
tients, myself  among  the  rest ! — but  the  seal  and  the 
dovekies  kept  themselves  out  of  shot. 

At  this  lead  we  saw  the  recent  frost-smoke  within  a 
few  yards  of  us  in  pointed  tongues  of  vapor :  further 
off,  the  long,  wreathy  brown  clouds  were  rising.  I 
never  before,  not  even  in  Wellington  Channel,  saw 
this  phenomenon  in  greater  perfection :  in  Wellington 
it  was  an  interesting,  sometimes  a  gloomy  feature; 
here  it  was  imposing.  As  far  back  as  the  twelfth,  we 
had  caught  glimpses  of  brown  vapor  in  this  very  di- 
rection :  we  now  learned  to  look  upon  it  in  certain 
phases  as  an  unerring  indication  of  open  water,  and 
wondered  that  we  did  not  so  regard  it  earlier. 

The  chasms  were  not  limited  to  the  long  lead  be- 
fore us.     They  extended  to  the  east  and  west  indefin- 


FROST-SMOKE. 


333 


itely;  and  were  intersected  by  transverse  fissures, 
which  so  met  each  other  as  completely  to  surround 
our  vessels.  From  this  circuit  the  frost-smoke  was 
rising.  The  thermometer  stood  at  —20°,  fifty-two  de- 
grees below  the  freezing  point  in  the  shade ;  but  the 
.sun  was  shining  brilliantly,  raising  the  mercury  to 
+  10°.  Under  these  circumstances,  theoretically  so 
favorable,  this  Arctic  phenomenon  became  the  most 
prominent  feature  in  the  scene. 

As  I  stood  upon  a  tall  knob  of  hummock,  the  en- 
tire horizon  seemed  to  be  sending  up,  exhaling  a  bronz- 
ine  smoke — not  the  lambent,  smoky  wreaths  which  1 
have  compared  to  burning  turpentine,  but  a  peculiar 
russet  brown  smoke,  tongued  and  wreathy  when  near, 
but  at  a  distance  rolling  in  cumulated  masses.  These 
seemed  to  cling  at  their  bases  to  the  surface  from  which 
they  rose,  like  the  discharges  of  artillery  over  water, 
or  a  locomotive  steaming  over  a  cold,  wet  meadow. 
They  were  wafted  by  the  wind,  so  as  to  drive  them 
out  in  lines  two  or  three  hundred  yards  long  ;  but  they 
clung  tenaciously  to  the  water  and  young  ice,  giving 
us  a  varying  but  always  n-^irow  horizon  of  smoke. 
The  Resc'ie  was  enveloped  with  the  heavy,  sooty 
clouds  of  repeated  broadsides.  If  I  had  seen  the  flash- 
ing of  guns  or  the  glimmer  of  burning  prairie-grass,  1 
should  have  been  less  impressed  ;  so  strange,  very 
strange,  was  this  ordinary  attendant  on  conflagration 
rolling  in  the  midst  of  our  winteriness. 


t  1 1 


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' 

THE   ICE-PACK  OPEMNCI,   MARCH  21. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIL 


''3Iarch  20.  Thursday,  the  20th  of  Miircli,  opens 
with  a  gale,  a  regular  gale.  On  reaching  de{;k  after 
breakfast,  I  found  the  wind  froni  the  .southeast,  the 
thermometer  at  zero,  and  rising.  These  southeast 
storms  are  looked  upon  as  having  an  important  influ- 
ence on  the  ice.  They  are  always  warm,  and  by  the 
sea  which  they  excite  at  the  southern  margin  of  the 
pack,  have  a  great  effect  in  breaking  the  floes.  Mr. 
Olrik  told  me  that  they  were  anxiously  looked  for  on 
the  Greenland  coast  as  precursors  of  open  water.  The 
date  of  the  southeast  gale  last  year,  at  Uppernavik, 
was  April  25th.  Our  thermometer  gave  -\-5'^  at  noon- 
day, +  7*^  at  one,  and  +8°  at  three  o'clock!! 

"  This  is  the  heaviest  storm  we  have  had  since  en- 
tering Lancaster  Sound,  exactly  seven  months  and  a 
day  ago.  The  snow  is  whirled  in  such  quantities, 
that  our  thick  felt  housing  seems  as  if  of  gauze:  it 


HiMaiiiili 


qm 


A     TRAMP. 


335 


>r  on 

The 

lavik, 

lioon- 

le  eii- 
liul  a 
lities, 
te:  it 


not  only  covers  our  decks,  but  drives  into  our  clothes 
like  fine  dust  or  flour.  A  plated  thermometer  was  in- 
visible  fourteen  feet  from  the  eye:  from  the  distance 
of  ten  paces  off  on  our  quarter,  a  white  opacity  cov- 
ers every  thing,  the  compass-stand,  fox-traps,  and  all 
beyond :  the  Rescue,  of  course,  is  completely  hidden. 
This  heavy  snow-drift  exceeds  any  thing  that  I  had 
conceived,  although  many  of  my  Arctic  English  friends 
had  discoursed  to  me  eloquently  about  their  perils  and 
discomforts.  As  to  facing  it  in  a  stationary  position, 
nothing  human  could;  for  a  man  would  be  buried  in 
ten  minutes.  Even  in  reaching  our  little  Tusculum, 
we  tumble  up  to  our  middle,  in  places  where  a  few 
minutes  before  the  very  ice  was  laid  bare.  The  en- 
tire topography  of  our  ice  is  changing  constantly. 

"  7  P.M.  '  The  wind  is  howling.'  Our  mess  begin 
to  talk  again  of  sleeping  in  boots,  and  the  other  lux- 
uries  of  Lancaster  Sound.  For  my  own  part,  better, 
far  better  this,  with  the  spicy  tingling  of  a  crisis,  than 
the  corroding,  scurvy-engendering  sameness  of  the 
past  two  months.  Every  moment  now  is  full  of  ex- 
pectation. 

^^  March  21.  The  wind  changed  this  morning  to 
the  westward,  and  by  daylight  was  blowing  freshly. 
After  breakfast,  Murdaugh  and  myself  started  on  a 
tramp  to  the  '  open  water,'  to  see  the  effects  of  the 
gale.  The  drift  was  beyond  conception;  sufficient, 
in  many  places,  to  have  covered  up  our  whole  ship's 
company.  The  wind  made  it  as  cold  at  —5°  as  I 
have  s'^en  it  at  —30°,  and  the  fine  snow  pelted  our 
faces;  but  the  surface  was  frozen  so  hard  that  we 
walked  over  the  crust,  and  in  a  little  over  half  an 
hour  we  reached  the  lead. 

"  Planting  a  signal  pole,  with  a  red  silk  handker- 


*.:.}■         H    I  If 


■y 


.:U  I  ' 


*.:|         "■ 


»i       I      mi. 


1'     !•    ii 


■  ]• 


i-l 


#r  ^: 


M;^l,.l,.,; 


-*i- 


M  ■ 


>•■•» 


J 


1  ^'A 


:-^_ 


:|Wit;i! 


'If 


336 


THE    OPEN    WATER. 


chief  as  a  mark,  and  taking  compass-bearings  to  guide 
us  back  again,  we  began  to  look  around  us.  Our 
expectations  of  hummock  action  were  agreeably  dis- 
appointed. We  thought  that  the  storm  would  have 
driven  the  ice  from  the  southward,  and  that  the 
change  of  wind  w^ould  have  marshaled  opposing  floes 
to  meet  it.  But  it  was  not  so.  Even  the  young, 
marginal  ice,  though  warped,  was  unbroken.  The 
pressure  had  evidently  taken  place,  but  with  little 
effect.  After  the  gigantic  upheavings  of  Lancaster 
Sound,  excited  by  winds  much  weaker,  no  wonder  I 
was  surprised.  Upon  thinking  it  over,  I  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  absence  of  a  point  d^appui,  either 
of  land  or  land-ice,  was  the  cause  of  these  diminished 
actions.  We  were  now  in  a  great  sea,  surrounded  by 
consolidated  floes,  and  away  from  salient  capes  or 
shore-bound  ice.  The  pressure  was  diffused  through- 
out a  greater  mass,  without  points  of  special  or  even 
unequal  resistance.  If  this  reasoning  hold,  we  will 
not  experience  the  expected  tumult  until  we  ^rift 
into  a  region  where  forces  are  more  in  opposition; 
perhaps  not  until  we  reach  the  contraction  of  Davis' 
Straits. 

"  The  young  ice  margin  of  this  open  lead  had  the 
appearance  of  a  beautiful  wave-flattened  sand  beach. 
The  lead  itself  had  opened  so  far  that  its  opposite 
shores  were  barely  visible.  The  wind  checked  the 
immediate  formation  of  new  ice;  and,  to  our  inex- 
pressible joy,  there,  glittering  in  the  cold  sunlight, 
were  little  rippling  waves.  So  long  have  we  been 
pent  up  by  this  wretched  circle  of  unchanging  snow, 
that  I  make  myself  ridiculous  by  talking  of  trifles, 
with  which  you,  milk-drinking,  sun-basking,  melted- 
water-seeing  people  at  home  can  have  no  sympathy. 


Pi." 


r 


ICE-VOICES. 


337 


In  spite  of  the  winds  and  the  snow-drift,  I  could 
hear  the  babbling  of  these  waves  as  they  laughed  in 
their  temporary  freedom. 

^^  March  22,  Saturday.  I  started  again  for  the  ice- 
openings.  There  had  evidently  been  a  good  deal  of 
commotion  in  the  night ;  but  nothing  so  violent  as  to 
negative  my  yesterday's  conclusions.  Still  there  were 
hummocks  of  young  tables,  and  some  ugly  twists  of 
the  beach  line ;  and  matters  had  not  yet  settled  them- 
selves into  rest.  As  the  great  floe  on  which  I  stood 
traveled,  under  the  influence  of  the  west  wind,  oblique- 
ly eastward,  I  heard  once  more  the  familiar  sounds  of 
our  nodes  Lancastrianee.  The  grating  of  nutmegs,  the 
cork  rubbing  of  old-fashioned  tables,  the  young  pup- 
pies, and  the  bee-hives;  all  these  were  back  again; 
but  we  missed  pleasantly  the  wailing,  the  howling, 
the  clattering,  the  exploding  din,  which  used  to  come 
to  us  through  the  darkness.  The  pulse-like  interval 
was  there  too,  like  a  breathing-time ;  but  the  day- 
light modified  every  thing,  my  feelings  most  of  all. 
They  became  almost  pleasant,  as  I  listened,  after  a 
lullaby  fashion,  to  the  bees  and  puppies;  and  some- 
thing very  like  gratitude  came  over  me,  as  I  thought 
of  the  uncertain  gloom  or  palpable  midnight  which 
accompanied  a  few  weeks  ago  the  '  voices  of  the  ice.' 
The  thermometer  was  21°  below  zero,  and  the  wind 
blowing:  naturally  enough,  my  nose  became  a  tallow 
nose  in  the  midst  of  my  reverie.  So  I  rubbed  the 
nose,  blew  the  nose,  buffeted  my  armpits  until  my 
fingers  tingled,  and  then  started  off  on  a  tramp. 

"Seal  were  seen,  curious  as  usual,  but  indulging 
in  the  weakness  afar  off.  Presently  two  poor  winter- 
mated  little  divers  met  my  meat-seeking  senses.  One 
of  these  I  killed  with  my  rifle,  covetously  regretting 


ill'. 


.'-i  ^  i: 


'* ,.' 


\f 


n 


'i  li  d 


.,'  'If 


I   » 


!.i  M  f 


i 


I 


''mm  ..  > 


338 


ICE    COMMOTIONS. 


that  my  one  ball  could  not  align  his  mate.  This 
was  the  first  game  we  had  obtained  since  the  Ml: 
he  was  divided,  poor  fellow,  between  two  of  my  scur- 
vy  patients.  In  getting  this  bird  out,  I  came  very 
near  getting  myself  in;  and  that,  when  a  ducking 
means  a  freezing,  is  no  fun. 

"  10  P.M.  To-night  finds  me  knocked  up.  Be  it 
known,  that  after  crawling  on  my  belly,  not  like  the 
wisest  of  animals,  for  two  hours,  I  came  nearly  with- 
in shot  of  a  week's  fresh  meat.  The  fresh  meat  dived, 
first  shaking  his  whisker  tentacles  at  my  disconsolate 
beard,  leaving  me  half  frozen  and  wholly  discontent- 
ed. Fool-like,  after  the  long  walk  back,  the  warm- 
ing, the  drying,  and  the  feeding,  I  returned  by  the 
other  long  walk  to  the  ice-openings,  tramped  for 
two  hours,  saw  nothing  but  frost-smoke,  and  came 
back  again,  dinnerless,  with  legs  quaking,  and  spirits 
wholly  out  of  tune. 

"Our  drift  to-day,  at  meridian,  was  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  9  miles;  our  latitude  was  71°  9^  18^^ 

"March  23,  Sunday.  After  divine  service,  started 
for  the  ice-openings.  We  are  now  in  the  centre  of 
an  area,  which  we  estimated  roughly  as  four  miles 
from  north  to  south,  and  a  little  more  east  and  west. 
On  reaching  what  was  yesterday's  sea-beach,  I  was 
forced  to  recant  in  a  measure  my  convictions  as  to 
the  force  of  the  opposing  floes.  Yesterday's  beach 
existed  no  longer ;  it  was  swallowed  up,  crushed, 
crumbled,  submerged,  or  uplifted  in  long  ridges  of 
broken  ice. 

"  The  actions  were  still  in  progress,  and  fa^!-  in- 
truding upon  the  solid  old  ice  which  is  our  home- 
stead.  The  ice-tables  now  crumbling  into  hummocks 
were  from  eight  to  fourteen  inches  thick,  generally 


BREAK-UP. 


339 


'his 
'all: 
cur- 
irery 
^ing 

Je  it 
5  the 
yvith- 
ived, 
5olate 
itent- 
vrarm- 
ly  the 
3(1  for 
came 
spirits 

neigh- 

• 

started 
itre  of 
miles 
west. 
1  was 
as  to 
beach 
lushed, 
res  of 

:  in- 
Ihome- 
Imocks 
lieraliy 


ten.  Not  even  in  Lancaster  Sound  did  the  destruction 
of  surface  go  on  more  rapidly.  The  wind  was  a  mod- 
erate breeze  from  the  northwest,  and  the  floes  were 
advancing  on  each  other  at  a  rate  of  a  knot  and  a 
half  an  hour,  building  up  hummock  tables  along  their 
line  of  collision.  Several  rose  in  a  few  minutes  to  a 
height  of  ten  or  twelve  feet.  I  have  become  so  ac- 
cnstoined  to  these  glacial  eruptions,  that  I  mounted 
the  upheaving  ice,  and  rode  upon  the  fragments — an 
amusement  I  could  hardly  have  practiced  safely  before 
I  had  studied  their  changes. 

"  The  snow-covered  level  upon  which  Brooks  and 
myself  were  walking  was  about  thirty  paces  wide, 
between  the  older  ice  on  one  side  and  the  encroach- 
ing hummock-line  on  the  other.  Upon  our  return, 
after  a  walk  of  a  short  half  mile,  we  found  our  foot- 
steps obliterated,  and  the  hummock-line  within  a  few 
yards  of  this  older  ice.     Things  are  changing  rapidly. 

"  A  new  crack  was  reported  at  one  o'clock,  about 
the  third  of  a  mile  from  our  ship ;  and  the  bearings  of 
the  sun  showed  that  our  brig  had,  for  the  first  time 
since  entering  Baffin's  Bay,  rotated  considerably  to 
the  northward.  Here  were  two  subjects  for  examin- 
ation. So,  as  soon  as  dinner  was  over,  I  started  with 
Davis  and  Willie,  two  of  my  scurvy  henchmen,  on 
a  walk  to  the  openings.  Reaching  the  recent  crack, 
we  found  the  ice  five  feet  four  inches  thick,  and  the 
black  water,  in  a  clear  streak  a  foot  wide,  running  to 
the  east  and  west.*  I  had  often  read  of  Esquimaux 
being  carried  off  by  the  separation  of  these  great  floes ; 
but,  knowing  that  our  guns  could  call  assistance  from 
the  brig,  we  jumped  over  and  hurried  on.  AVe  were 
well  paid. 

*  This  direction,  transverse  to  the  long  axis  of  Baffin's  Bay,  set    s  to  be 
that  of  most  of  our  fissures. 


.«.?  ,r 


f 


X,   ''; 


il! 


W    it  "i 


f; 


k  I  I 


U 


;l 


i  ^;f! 


Ill 


r^r-v 


•-^ '  *t/ 


I/'  E 


340 


NARWHALS    AT    PLAY. 


"The  hummockings  of  this  morning  had  ceased; 
the  wind  so  gentle  as  hardly  to. he  perceptible:  the 
lead  before  me  was  an  open  river  of  water,  and  in  it 
were  narwhals  {M.  monoceros),  in  groups  of  five  or  six, 
rolling  over  and  over,  after  the  manner  of  the  dolphin 
tribe.  They  were  near  me;  so  near  that  I  could  see 
their  checkered  backs,  and  enjoy  the  rich  coSring 
that  decorates  them.  The  horn,  that  monodontal  proc- 
ess which  gives  them  their  name  of  sea-unicorn,  was 
perfectly  examinable.  Rising  in  a  spirally  indented 
cone,  this  beautiful  appendage  appeared  sometimes 
eight  and  ten  feet  out  of  water ;  one  especially,  whose 
tall  curvetings  astonished  my  body-guard.  I  never 
saw  a  more  graceful,  striking,  and  beautiful  exhibi- 
tion than  the  unrestrained  play  of  these  narwhals.* 
In  the  same  open  water,  almost  in  company  with  the 
narwhals,  were  white  whales  {Delphinoptervs  albi- 
cans, or  Beluga :  these  cetacea  have  so  many  names, 
they  puzzle  me),  and  seal  besides. 

"  I  was  tempted  to  stay  too  long.  The  wind  sprang 
up  suddenly.  The  floe  began  to  move.  I  thought  of 
the  crack  between  me  and  the  ship,  and  started  off. 
The  walking,  however,  was  very  heavy,  and  my  sc:  • 
vy  patients  stiff  in  the  extensors.  By  the  time  I 
reached  the  crack,  it  had  opened  into  a  chasm,  and 
a  river  as  broad  as  the  Wissahiccon  ran  between  me 
and  our  ship.  After  some  little  anxiety — not  much 
— I  saw  our  captain  ordering  a  party  to  our  relief. 
The  sledges  soon  appeared,  dragged  by  a  willing  par- 


'11 

1' 

IM 

w  '< 

i 
m 

m 

i 

K^ 

«Ui 


m 


*  I  have  seen  many  of  these  fish  since,  but  never  under  sucli  circumstances. 
I  stood  on  a  ledge  of  hummocii  within  short  gunshot.  The  animals  were  en- 
tirely unapprehensive.  The  non-symmetrical  character  of  the  "  horn  "  (an  un- 
duly developed  tooth,  say  the  naturalists)  was  not  seen;  and  as  this  long  lance- 
like  process  played  about  at  a  constantly  varying  angle,  it  reminded  me  of  the 
mast  of  some  sunken  boat  swayed  by  the  waves. 


STATE     OF    THE     PACK. 


341 


ty;  the  India  rubber  boat  was  lowered  into  the  lead, 
and  the  party  ferried  over.  So  ends  this  last  trip  to 
these  ice-openings. 

"  It  is  evident  that  these  gradual  crack-formings  and 
chasm-openings,  with  the  hummocking  and  other  at- 
tendant actions,  are  but  preludes  to  a  complete  break- 
ing up.  Our  previous  observations  show  that  the  dis- 
ruption of  these  large  areas  can  not  be  effected  sud- 
denly. It  is  a  gradual  process ;  so  gradual,  even  in 
Lancaster  Sound,  as  to  allow  time  for  personal  escape, 
although  the  vessel  be  a  victim. 

"From  the  12th  of  January,  the  date  of  our  last 
break-up,  down  to  the  present  movement,  is  two 
months.  The  intense  cold,  with  feeble  winds  and  the 
absence  of  impact  or  collisions,  have  kept  up  the  integ- 
rity of  this  great  pack.  I  think  it  may  reasonably  be 
doubted  whether  it  will  now  close  again  before  our 
liberation  or  destruction.  The  excessive  thickness  of 
the  tables,  the  wave  and  tidal  actions,  the  mildening 
temperature,  and  the  probable  continuance  of  winds, 
all  point  to  this.  We  have  already  a  system  of  fis- 
sures within  a  third  of  a  mile  of  us  ;  and  a  continued 
augmentation  of  their  number  must  soon  place  us  in  a 
centre  of  commotion.  It  is  pleasant  by  one's  ice-ex- 
perience to  anticipate  the  state  of  things  :  and  now 
that  the  battle  is  coming  on  again,  I  make  a  record 
of  these  reasoned  expectations,  to  show  you  hereafter 
how  well  I  am  reasoning. 

"One  thing  more  :  the  days  have  stolen  upon  us — 
longer,  and  longer,  and  longer,  until  now  the  long  twi- 
light lets  me  read  on  deck  as  late  as  eight  P.M.  In 
fact,  the  sun's  greatest  depression  below  the  horizon  is 
now  18°,  the  Unit  of  theoretical  twilight. 

"March  26,  Wednesday.  The  same  peculiar  crisp- 


if 


t    J  ill     '.    '11. 


li 


'"'    '       j,' 


I-       .i    ■ 


'M 


;•:    ¥ 


Si    V 


m/ 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


<« 


4(a 


1.0  ^1^  Ui 

^^=  itt  Ui2   i2.2 

III  g  la  ■20 

I.I  *" 


Photographic 

Sciences 

Corporation 


^ 


<^^ 


\ 


;\ 


\ 


^V'"'^ 


c\ 


23  WIST  MAIN  STRUT 

WIRSTiR,N.Y.  USM 

(716)172-4503 


*ii 


Mi 


Si  J 


342 


A    WALK. 


ing  or  crackling  sound,  which  I  noted  on  the  2d  of 
February,  was  heard  this  morning  in  every  direction. 
This  sound,  as  the  *  noise  accompanying  the  aurora,' 
has  been  attributed  by  Wrangell  and  others,  ourselves 
among  the  rest,  to  changes  of  atmospheric  temperature 
acting  upon  the  crust  of  the  snow.  We  heard  it  most 
distinctly  between  seven  and  eight  A.M.,  when  the 
solar  ray  should  begin  to  affect  the  snow.  The  mer- 
cury stood  at  -27°  at  five,  rising  to  - 19°  by  nine  A.M., 
and  attaining  a  maximum  of  —2°  by  noonday.  But 
this  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  indicating  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  snow  surface.  The  snow,  when  horizontal, 
according  to  all  my  observations,  differs  but  little  in 
temperature  from  the  atmosphere,  owing  probably  to 
its  oblique  reception  of  the  solar  ray ;  while  the  snow- 
coverings  of  the  hummocks  and  angular  floe-tables, 
which  receive  the  rays  at  right  angles,  show  by  re- 
peated trials  a  marked  augmentation.  I  venture, 
therefore,  to  refer  this  peculiar  crisping  sound  to  the 
unequal  contraction  and  dilatation  of  these  unequally 
presenting  surfaces,  not  to  a  sudden  change  of  atmos- 
pheric temperature  acting  upon  the  snow. 

"  To-day  we  saw  a  couple  of  icebergs  looking  up  in 
the  far  south. 

"March  27,  Thursday.  The  sun  shone  out,  but  not 
as  yesterday.  The  little  cirrous  clouds  interfere  with 
its  brightness,  and  affect  very  perceptibly  its  warmth. 
To  the  eye,  however,  the  day  is  undimmed. 

"The  wind,  which  we  watch  closely  as  the  index 
of  our  ice-changes,  our  leading  variety,  came  out  at 
seven  in  the  evening  from  the  northward ;  and  with  it 
came  a  rise  of  black  frost-smoke  to  the  south,  showing 
that  the  old  ice-opening  had  gaped  again.  I  had  start- 
ed before  this  at  half  past  five,  with  old  Blinn,  my 


THE    NARWHALS. 


343 


faithful  satellite,  for  a  bright  plain,  glittering  in  the 
low  sunshine  some  three  miles  to  the  west,  a  new  di- 
rection.   We  did  not  get  back  till  eight. 

"Let  me  make  a  picture  for  you  without  a  jot  of 
fancy  about  it,  and  you  may  get  H.  to  put  it  into  col- 
ors if  he  can.  The  sun  was  low,  very  low ;  and  his 
long,  slanting  beams,  of  curious  indescribable  purple, 
fell  upon  old  Blinn  and  myself  as  we  sat  on  a  crag 
of  ice  which  overhung  the  sea.  The  chasm  was  per- 
haps a  mile  wide,  and  the  opposite  ice-shores  were 
so  painted  by  the  glories  of  the  sunshine,  that  they  ap- 
peared like  streaks  of  flame,  licking  continuous  water. 
The  place  to  which  we  had  worked  ourselves  had  been 
subjected  to  forces  which  no  one  could  realize,  so  cha- 
otic, and  enormous,  and  incomprehensible  were  they. 
A  line  of  old  floe,  eight  feet  thick  and  four  miles  long, 
had  been  powdered  into  a  pedragal  of  crushed  sugar, 
rising  up  in  great  efllorescing  knobs  fifteen  and  twen- 
ty feet  high  ;  and  from  amid  these,  like  crystal  rocks 
from  the  foam  of  a  cataract,  came  transparent  tables 
of  blue  ice,  floating,  as  it  were,  on  unsubstantial  white- 
ness. Some  of  these  blocks  measured  eight  feet  in 
thickness  by  twenty-two  long,  and  of  indeterminate 
depth,  one  side  being  obliquely  buried  in  the  mass. 
On  one  of  these  tables,  that  stretched  out  like  a  glass 
spear-point,  directly  over  the  water,  were  straddled 
your  brother  and  his  companion.  Underneath  us  the 
narwhals  were  passing  almost  within  pole-reach.  As 
they  rolled  over,  much  after  the  fashion  of  our  own 
porpoises,  I  could  see  the  markings  of  their  backs,  and 
the  great  suction  of  their  jaws  throwing  the  water  into 
eddies.  Seal,  breast-high,  were  treading  water  with 
their  horizontal  tails,  and  the  white  whale  was  blow- 
ing purple  sprays  into  the  palpable  sunshine. 


fii 


&  I  i 


r> 


344 


RETURN    TO    VESSEL. 


ri   ' 


"March  23,  Friday.  I  visited  the  western  opening 
of  yesterday.  The  sea  has  dwindled  to  a  narrow  lane, 
flanked  by  the  heavy  hummocks,  whose  rupture  formed 
the  sides.  Although  the  aperture  was  so  distant  yes- 
terday that  I  could  barely  see  the  further  banks,  here 
and  there  dotting  the  horizon,  it  has  now  closed  with 
such  nice  adaptation  of  its  line  of  fracture,  that,  but  for 
a  few  yards  of  lateral  deviation,  this  *  yesternight  sea' 
would  be  nothing  but  a  crack  in  the  ice-field.  The 
area  of  filmy  ice  that  was  between  the  edges  of  the 
lead  had  been  thrust  under  the  floe,  thus  aiding  the 
process  of  re-cementation.  These  ice-actions  are  very 
complicated  and  various. 

"  Retracing  my  steps  by  a  long  circuit  to  the  south- 
ward,  I  came  to  a  spot  where,  without  any  apparent 
axis  of  fracture  (chasm),  the  ice  presented  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  table-hummocks.  It  was  very  old  and  thick, 
at  least  nine  feet  in  solid  depth.  About  a  little  circle 
of  a  hundred  yards  diameter,  it  had  been  thrown  up 
into  variously-presenting  surfaces,  with  a  marked  bear- 
ing toward  a  focus  of  greatest  energy  and  accumula- 
tion, presenting  an  appearance  almost  eruptive.  The 
crushed  fragments  exuding  and  falling  over,  and  roll- 
ing down  toward  the  level  ice,  so  as  to  cover  it  for  feet 
in  depth  with  powdery,  granulated  rubbish ! 


THE   KLOE   IN    APBIL. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 


My  journal  for  the  closing  days  of  March  and  the 
early  ones  of  April  is  full  of  varying  drifts  and  altern- 
ating temperatures.  Still,  it  seemed  as  if,  by  some 
gradual  though  scarcely  explicable  process,  the  work 
of  our  extrication  was  going  on.  Sometimes  the  wind 
would  come  to  us  from  the  southeast — the  breaking- 
up  wind,  as  we  called  it,  because  as  it  subsided  the 
reaction  of  the  floes  developed  itself  in  fissures  ;  but 
more  frequently  from  the  north,  expediting  our  course 
to  a  more  genial  latitude.  The  floes  themselves  were, 
however,  much  more  massive  and  gnarled  than  any 
we  had  seen  before :  every  party  that  left  the  vessel 
for  an  ice-tramp  came  back  with  exaggerated  impres- 
sions of  the  mighty  energies  that  had  hurled  them  to- 
gether. We  felt  that  it  would  have  been  impossible 
for  any  organized  structure  of  wood  and  metal  to  re- 
sist such  Maelstroms  of  solid  ice  as  had  left  these  me- 
morials around  us,  and  looked  forward  with  scarcely 
pleasurable  anticipations  to  the  equivalent  forces  that 
might  be  required  to  obliterate  them.  Some  extracts 
from  my  journal  may  show  how  far  other  causes  were 
in  the  mean  time  operating  our  release. 


346 


MEASURES    OF    HEAT. 


"  f ; 


"April  7,  Monday.  For  the  last  fortnight  the  ice 
has  been  perceptibly  moist  at  the  surface.  The  open 
crack  near  our  brig  to  the  south  has  now  been  closed 
for  nearly  a  fortnight ;  yet  the  snow  which  covers  it 
is  quite  slushy.  The  trodden  paths  around  our  ship 
are  in  muddy  pulp,  adhering  to  the  boots.  All  this 
can  hardly  be  the  direct  influence  of  the  sun  upon  the 
surface;  for  the  thermometer  seldom  exceeds  +16°, 
and  is  more  generally  below  +10°  at  noonday.  Yet 
this  temperature  has  an  evident  influence  upon  the 
status  of  the  ice,  increasing  its  permeability,  and  per- 
mitting some  changes  analogous  to  thawing,  but  which 
I  can  not  explain.  May  it  be  that  the  crystalline 
structure  of  the  ice  is  undergoing  some  modiflcation, 
that  increases  its  capilarity,  or  develops  an  action  like 
the  endosmose  and  exosmose ! 

"  It  is  a  mere  puzzle,  of  course,  for  we  have  not 
data  enough  to  make  it  a  question.  Yet  there  is  an- 
other like  it  that  I  can  not  help  setting  down.  Can 
it  be  that  our  thermometers,  so  notorious  in  this  Po- 
lar region  for  their  imperfect  coincidence  with  '  sensa- 
tions of  cold,'  are  equally  fallacious  as  measures  of 
absolute  increments  or  decrements  of  sensible  caloric? 
It  will  not  do,  I  suppose,  to  admit  such  a  supposition ; 
yet  the  marvels  which  come  constantly  before  me 
may  almost  justify  it.  You  know  that  I  am  no  heat- 
maker.  Well!  my  winter  trials,  as  you  may  imagine, 
have  not  increased  my  vital  energies.  Suppose  me, 
then,  as  you  knew  me  when  I  left  New  York.  For 
the  past  week  I  have  almost  lived  in  the  open  air — 
genial,  soft,  bland,  and  to  sensation  just  cool  enough 
to  be  pleasantly  tonic.  I  walk  moderately,  and  am 
in  comfortable,  glowing  warmth.  I  walk  over  the 
hummocks  or  ice  floes,  and  am  oppressed  with  per- 


THERMOMETRICAL   FALLACIES. 


34/ 


sp<iration  and  lassitude.  This  at  a  temperature  of 
zero  in  the  shade,  and  +11°  in  the  sun!!!  I  can  not 
realize  it.  To-day  the  thermometer  gave  +10°  in  the 
shade  of  the  ship,  obviously  affected  not  a  little  by 
radiation,  +34°  in  the  sun  over  the  ship's  painted 
side,  +13°  by  my  own  observation  of  an  instrument 
suspended  at  a  distance  from  the  ship,  and  under  the 
same  circumstances  in  the  shade,  zero!  Yet  the  day 
seemed  spring-like  and  delicious.  The  early  breezes 
(8  A.M.)  from  the  southeast  came  with  a  sensation  of 
reviving  coolness,  although  to  their  warmth  we  per- 
haps owed  our  sensations  of  pleasant  heat.  "While  I 
am  writing,  the  skaters  come  in  to  say  that  *  it  is  too 
warm  to  skate:'  yet  the  sun  is  low,  and  my  shade 
thermometer  gives  some  ten  degrees  below  the  point 
of  freezing. 

"  I  have  often  alluded  to  this  discrepancy  between 
our  feelings  and  the  recorded  temperature.  I  have 
read  of  the  same  thing  in  the  Arctic  voyages,  with  a 
reference  to  contrast  for  the  explanation.  But  I  never 
until  to-day  realized  so  fully  that  we  were  warmed 
from  within  by  a  mysterious,  and,  I  must  believe,  un- 
known system  of  functional  compensation.  I  wish 
Liebig  could  make  a  Polar  voyage!!  As  you  feel 
open-windowed  at  the  first  breaking-in  day  of  Spring, 
with  your  thermometers  at  vernal  60°,  so  feel  I  with 
the  thermometer  at  zero ! ! 

''April  10,  Thursday,  2  P.M.  The  southeaster 
blows  on  with  steady  endurance.  It  is  now  east  by 
south ;  a  snow-storm  reminding  me  of  home,  so  soft 
and  flaky,  drifting  every  where ;  and  the  thermometer 
rising  steadily  to  +32  at  noonday.  Once  more  at  the 
freezing  point ! !  it  seems  hard  to  realize.  The  decks 
are  wet,  the  housing  dripping,  the  snow  adhesive  and 
slushy. 


m 


'% 


^f 


Mr 


i3 


t 


I 


r  I  m 

m 


liif' 


348 


WATER. 


"  9  P.M.  The  gale  continues.  Our  thermometer 
outside  at  a  maximum  of  +33°.  Every  thing  wet, 
warm,  and  summer-like. 

"I  have  a  story  to  tell — a  foolish  adventure;  but  I 
was  ennuied  past  all  bearing.  Walking  the  deck, 
beast-like,  in  our  damp  cage,  it  occurred  to  me  that  I 
would  climb  the  rigging.  Climb  the  rigging  I  did; 
and,  by  a  glimpse  between  the  long  wreaths  of  drift, 
saw  Water !  The  temptation  was  a  sore  one :  I  yield- 
ed to  it,  came  down  from  my  perch,  donned  my  seal- 
skin, shouldered  my  carbine,  and  walked  off  with  my 
face  toward  the  wonder.  None  of  the  crew  would 
accompany  me:  my  messmates  did  not  volunteer:  so 
I  was  alone. 

"It  was  a  walk  to  be  remembered.  Snow  up  to  the 
neck;  drift  moist  and  blinding;  and  a  gale,  luckily 
not  a  cold  one,  in  my  face.  But  after  a  mile  of  such 
promenading  as  no  other  region  can  boast  of,  I  reach- 
ed the  water  at  last.  Water  it  was;  dark,  surging 
water ;  no  pellicles  of  glazing  ice ;  no  sludgy  streams 
of  pancake ;  but  the  liquid  element  itself,  such  as  we 
saw  last  summer,  and  you  see  every  day,  stretching 
out  as  broad  as  the  Delaware,  and  in  contrast  with 
the  snow  at  its  margin  as  black  as  Styx. 

"  I  took  a  good  look  at  it,  and  turned  to  come  back. 
The  wind  had  wiped  out  my  footsteps :  all  within  the 
horizon  was  a  waste  of  sleet.  I  had  neither  compass 
nor  signal  pole  to  show  me  the  way ;  but  I  kept  the 
gale  behind  me,  and  waded  onward.  I  do  not  know 
how  far  I  might  have  traveled  before  reaching  the 
vessel;  but  I  hau  buffeted  the  elements  quite  long 
enough  to  content  me,  when  I  heard  Captain  Griffin 
hailing  me  through  the  drift.  He  had  been  uneasy 
at  my  stay,  and  was  out  in  search  of  me.    We  took 


ENDOSMOSIS. 


349 


a  new  departure  together,  were  biown  over  a  few 
times,  and  tumbled  over,  no  matter  how  often;  but 
we  hit  the  ships  to  a  notch. 

"  This  crack  is  the  old  transverse  one  from  north- 
east to  southwest,  off  the  Rescue's  port  beam.  The 
gale,  with  such  a  temperature,  must  be  achieving 
much  upon  the  ice  to  the  southward.  It  can  hardly 
reach  men  so  imbedded  as  we  are;  but  it  may  so 
break  up  the  southern  edge  of  the  pack  as  to  give  us 
a  ready  drift,  should  we  have  a  favoring  wind.  As  it 
is,  we  are  undoubtedly  flicking  it  to  the  north  again. 

"April  15.  The  sun  perceptibly  warmer,  and  the  in- 
dications of  thaw  unequivocal.  To  guard  as  far  as 
we  can  against  the  chance  of  the  two  vessels  being 
separated  among  the  floes  when  the  general  break-up 
comes,  we  began  a  trench  to-day  from  one  to  the  other. 
It  goes  down  through  the  snow  to  the  solid  ice ;  and 
we  are  §oing  to  strew  rock-salt  in  it,  remembering 
that  even  a  slight  scratch  on  the  surface  will  determ- 
ine the  line  of  fracture.  We  will  try  it  at  any  rate, 
even  across  the  entire  floe  to  the  present  seat  of  hum- 
mocking  at  the  open  water,  though  it  is  a  distance  of 
nearly  or  quite  two  miles.  We  are  looking  to  our 
approaching  disruption  with  absorbing  int'^  ^st;  and, 
whether  our  theories  are  good  or  bad,  ti'  give  us 
something  to  think  and  talk  about.  Our  ice-cutting 
machine  belongs  to  the  same  family.  We  finished  it 
to-day,  and  it  will  be  tested  to-morrow. 

"  The  ice  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  fire-hole  is  wet 
and  overflowed.  It  seems  to  be  depressed  below  the 
water-level.  The  snow  has  piled  up  some  seven  or 
eight  feet  high  on  the  vessels'  side,  and  this,  with  the 
radiating  heat,  may  possibly  explain  this  depression. 
But  I  am  strongly  inclined  to  believe  in  endosmotic 
actions  in  the  ii'o. 


!.,  *    •■ 


'I  i 


•:m 


'>.. 


350 


A    BEAR. 


"  April  16.  To-day  the  salting  continues.  The  men 
call  it  our  spring-seed  sowing.  On  board  the  Rescue, 
a  party  are  at  work  preparing  for  the  return  to  her. 
The  ice-cutting  machine  proves  a  failure. 

"  This  afternoon  a  solitary  snow-bunting  was  seen 
flitting  around  our  vessel.  The  last  time  we  saw  this 
little  animal  was  at  Griffith's  Island,  in  the  midst  of 
the  terrible  storm  which  we  were  sharing  with  our 
English  brethren.  Goodsir  saw  the  same  bird  on  the 
13th,  in  latitude  54° ;  but  he  was  not  at  Winter  Island 
till  the  27th.  Since  then,  the  little  family  have  made 
their  migratory  journey,  and  are  now  on  their  way 
again  to  these  Polar  seas.  They  breed  seldom  or 
never  south  of  62°,  and  linger  late  among  the  North- 
ern snows.  This  poor  little  wanderer  was  an  estray 
from  his  fellows.  He  paused  at  the  treasures  which 
surrounded  our  ship,  refreshed  himself  from  our  dirt 
pile,  and  then  flew  away  again  on  his  weary  journey. 

^^ April  17.  A  memorable  day.  We  put  out  our 
cabin  lamps,  and  are  henceforward  content  with  day- 
light, like  the  rest  of  the  world.  Our  latitude  is  69° 
52' ;  our  longitude,  63°  03". 

"This  afternoon,  while  walking  deck,  this  endless 
deck,  with  Murdaugh,  we  discovered  a  bear  walking 
tranquilly  alongside,  nearly  within  gunshot.  We 
have  lost  so  many  opportunities  by  the  bustle  and 
ignorance  of  a  universal  chase,  that  I  crawled  out  to 
attack  him  alone.  To  my  sorrow,  the  brute,  who 
had  been  gazing  at  the  ship  dog-fashion  and  curious, 
turned  tail.  He  was  out  of  range  for  my  carbine,  but 
I  gave  him  the  ball  as  he  ran  in  his  right  hind-quarter. 
He  fell  at  once,  and  I  thought  him  secure ;  but  rising 
instantly,  he  turned  upon  his  wounded  haunch,  and, 
very  much  as  a  dog  does  at  a  bee-sting,  bit  spasmodi- 


THE    BEAR. 


851 


cally  at  the  wound.  For  a  little  while  he  spun  round, 
biting  the  bloody  spot  with  a  short,  probing  nip ;  and 
then,  before  1  could  reload  my  piece,  started  off  at  a 
limping  but  rapid  gait.  I  mention  this  movement  on 
account  of  the  very  curious  fact  which  follows.  The 
animal  had  found  the  ball,  seized  it  between  the  in> 
cisors,  and  extracted  it.  The  bullet  is  now  in  my  pos- 
session, distinctly  marked  by  his  teeth. 

"  After  a  very  tedious  and  harassing  pursuit,  I  came 
up  to  him  at  the  young  ice.  He  stood  upon  the  brink 
of  the  lead.  I  was  within  long  shot,  and  about  to 
make  preparations  for  a  more  deliberate  and  certain 
aim,  when  he  took  to  the  water,  and  then  to  the  oppo- 
site young  ice,  bleeding  and  dropping  every  few  yards. 

"  Joined  by  Daly,  a  bold  bull-headed  Irishman,  1 
crossed  by  a  circuitous  channel,  and  then  took  to  the 
young  ice  myself,  and  tried  to  run  him  down.  It  was 
very  exciting;  and  I  fear  1  was  not  as  prudent  as  I 
ought  to  have  been;  for  a  dense  fog  had  gathered 
around  us,  and  the  young  floe,  level  as  the  sea  which 
it  covered,  was  but  two  nights  old.  The  bear  fell 
several  times ;  and  at  last,  poor  fellow,  dragged  him- 
self by  his  fore  feet,  trailing  his  hind  quarters  over  the 
incrusted  snow,  so  as  to  leave  a  long  black  imprint 
stained  by  blood. 

"  The  fog  was  getting  more  and  more  dense,  and 
the  frail  ice — we  were  now  walking,  as  it  were,  over 
the  sea  itself — bent  under  us  so  much,  that  I,  like  a 
prudent  man,  ordered  a  return.  This  chase  cost  us  at 
least  ten  miles  of  journey,  part  of  it  at  an  Indian  trot. 
We  dripped  like  men  in  a  steam  bath. 

"April  20,  Sunday.  Daly  started  with  a  company 
of  sailors  after  the  wounded  bear.  They  walked,  by 
their  own  account,  six  miles  before  they  found  him. 


t    •' 


!?  1 


''if- 


3''Pl 

It! 

1 

1 

352 


THE    BEAR. 


He  was  unable  to  retreat — stood  at  bay ;  and  the  fools 
were  so  scared  at  his  'growlings'  and  his  'bloody 
tongue,'  that  they  returned  without  daring  to  attack 
him. 

''April  21,  Monday.  I  have  more  than  common 
cause  for  thankfulness.  A  mere  accident  kept  me 
from  starting  last  night  to  secure  our  bear.  Had  I 
done  so,  I  would  probably  have  spared  you  reading 
more  of  my  journal.  The  ice  over  which  we  traveled 
so  carelessly  on  Saturday  has  become,  by  a  sudden 
movement,  a  mass  of  floating  rubbish.  An  open  river, 
broader  than  the  Delaware,  is  now  between  the  old  ice 
and  the  nearest  part  of  the  new,  over  which  I  walked 
on  the  19th  more  than  three  miles. 

"  In  the  walk  of  this  morning,  which  startled  me 
(vith  the  change,  I  saw  for  the  first  time  a  seal  upon 
the  ice.  This  looks  very  summer-like.  He  was  not 
accessible  to  our  guns.  To-day,  for  the  first  time  too, 
the  gulls  were  flying  over  the  renovated  water.  Com- 
ing back  we  saw  fresh  bear  tracks.  How  wonderful 
is  the  adaptation  which  enables  a  quadruped,  to  us 
associated  inseparably  with  a  land  existence,  thus  to 
inhabit  an  ice-covered  ocean.  We  are  at  least  eighty 
miles  from  the  nearest  land.  Cape  Kater ;  and  chan- 
nels innumerable  must  intervene  between  us  and  terra 
firma.  Yet  this  majestic  animal,  dependent  upon  his 
own  predatory  resources  alone,  and,  defying  cold  as 
well  as  hunger,  guided  by  a  superb  instinct,  confides 
himself  to  these  solitary,  unstable  ice-fields. 

"  Parry,  in  his  adventurous  Polar  effort,  found  these 
animals  at  the  most  northern  limit  of  recorded  observ- 
ation. Wrangell  had  them  as  companions  on  his  first 
Asiatic  journey  over  the  Polar  ocean.  Navigators 
have  found  them  also  floating  upon  J)erg  and  floe  far 


THE    BEAR. 


353 


out  in  open  sea ;  and  here  we  have  them  in  a  region 
some  seventy  miles  from  the  nearest  stahle  ice.  They 
have  seldom,  or,  as  far  as  my  readings  go,  never — if 
we  except  Parry's  Spitzhergen  experience — heen  seen 
so  far  from  land.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  they 
seem  to  have  heen  accidentally  caught  and  carried 
adrift  on  disengaged  ice-floes.  In  this  way  they  travel 
to  Iceland ;  and  it  may  have  heen  so  perhaps  with 
the  Spitzhergen  instances.  Others  have  heen  reported 
thirty  miles  from  shore  in  this  hay.  I  myself  noticed 
them  fifty  miles  from  the  Greenland  coast  last  July. 
"  There  is  something  very  grand  ahout  this  tawny 
savage ;  never  leaving  this  utter  destitution,  this  frigid 
inhospitahleness — coupling  in  May,  and  bringing  forth 
in  Christmas  time — a  gestation  carried  on  all  of  it 
below  zero,  more  than  half  of  it  in  Arctic  darkness — 
living  in  perpetual  snow,  and  dependent  for  life  upon 
a  never-ending  activity — using  the  frozen  water  as 
a  raft  to  traverse  the  open  seas,  that  the  water  un- 
frozen may  yield  him  the  means  of  life.  No  time 
for  hibernation  has  this  Polar  tigei:  his  life  is  one 
great  winter." 

Z 


far 


!• 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 


"April  22.  The  past  week  has  been  one  of  dis- 
mantling, rubbish-creating*,  ship-cleaning  torment. 
First,  bull's-eyes  were  inserted  in  the  deck ;  and  the 
black  felt  housing,  so  comfortable  in  the  winter  dark- 
ness, but  that  now  shut  out  the  sunlight  like  a  great 
pall,  was  triced  up  fore  and  aft,  remaining  only  amid- 
ships. Next,  the  Rescue,  with  her  new  bowsprit  in, 
received  her  crew  and  officers.  They  slep^  on  board 
last  night  for  the  first  time,  but  still  wal  :  over  the 
ice  to  their  meals. 

"  When  I  saw  the  little  brig  through  th«  darkness, 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  13th  of  Janua  /,  moving 
slowly  past  us  and  losing  herself  in  the  r  oom,  while 
sounds  like  artillery  mingled  with  i\  shrieking, 
howling,  SbiA  crashing  of  the  ice,  as  the  j^^^eat  ridges 
rose  and  fell — and  when  the  India-rubber  boat  was 
launched,  and  the  men  took  their  knapsacks,  and  old 
Brooks  called  out  to  us  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  the 
rigging,  believing  the  brig  about  to  topple  over — I  did 
not  think  there  would  be  a  spring-time  for  the  Rescue. 

"We  are  now  in  the  midst  of  those  intestine  changes 
which  characterize  the  house-cleanings  at  home.  The 
disgusting  lamps  have  done  smoking,  the  hatches  are 


THAWING. 


355 


allowed  to  look  out  at  the  sun,  and  the  galley,  with 
its  perpetual  odors,  is  banished  to  the  hurricane- 
house  on  deck.  That  peculiar  interspace  between 
the  coal  and  the  'purser's  slops,'  so  dark  and  full  of 
head-bumping  beams,  exults  in  the  full  glare  of  day. 
What  a  wonderful  hole  we  have  been  existing  in! 
It,  the  half-deck,  as  it  is  called  on  board  ship,  is  three 
feet  six  inches  high,  by  fourteen  feet  long  and  seven- 
teen broad.  On  it,  forgetful  of  precedence  and  rank, 
our  bedding  separated  from  the  loose  planking  by  a 
canvas  cot  frame,  slept  Murdaugh,  Vreeland,  Brooks, 
De  Haven,  two  cooks,  and  Dr.  Kane.  The  last-named 
came  on  board  last,  and  found,  though  he  is  not  a 
very  large  man,  a  sufficiently  narrow  kennel  between 
the  companion-ladder  and  the  dinner-table.  Our  cloth- 
ing, as  it  now  welcomed  the  sun,  was  black  with  lamp- 
soot;  the  beams  above  fringed,  and  festooned,  and 
wreathed  with  the  same.  My  bed-coverings,  frozen 
over  the  feet  in  the  winter,  are  bathed  with  inky  wa- 
ter. But  all  this  is  to  be  removed  to-day;  and  we  go 
back  to  the  luxuries  of  bunks,  and  daylight,  and  a 
long  breath. 

"  The  day  was  bright  and  sunny.  I  walked  out  to 
the  open  water.  Marks  of  commotion,  hummock 
ridges,  and  chasms.  A  new  feature  was  the  thaw. 
Heretofore  I  could  stand  upon  the  brink  of  the  cleanly- 
separated  fissures,  and  look  down  upon  the  bleak  water 
as  securely  as  from  a  quartz  rock.  To-day  every  thing 
around  (pshaw !  the  snow  and  ice,  I  mean ;  we  have 
no  things  here)  was  wet  and  crumbling.  The  snow 
covered  deceitfully  some  very  dangerous  cracks:  in 
one  of  these  I  sunk  neck  deep.  My  carbine  caught 
acrosa  it,  and  Holmes  pulled  me  out. 

"  We  are  very  anxious  to  obtain  fresh  meat  for  the 


Hit 


*A 


i'^'H 


ii< 


:  !  ' 


356 


PROGRESS    OF    THE    SEASON. 


«'.] 


hi^nm 


H  Ml  I 


•i|ra 


invalids.  Indeed,  our  longing  for  something  fresh  is 
itself  a  disease.  To-day  a  tantalizing  seal  kept  me 
prostrate  upon  the  slushy  ice  for  an  hour  and  a  half. 
In  spite  of  all  my  seal  craft,  the  prime  secret  of  which 
is  patience,  I  could  not  draw  him  into  gunshot.  With 
the  characteristic  curiosity  of  his  tribe,  the  poor  animal 
would  rise  breast  high  to  inspect  my  fur  cap.  Pres- 
ently a  whale  spouted,  and  off  he  went. 

"  The  decks  are  clear !  the  barrels  stowed  away 
below,  the  fore-peak  restored,  the  old  bunks  reoccu- 
pied,  and  my  messmates  snoozing  away  as  in  old 
times,  a  fire  burning  in  the  stove,  and  lard  lamps 
flaming  away  vigorously  upon  my  paper.  Daylight 
still  finds  its  way  down  the  hatch,  although  it  is 
eleven  o'clock. 

"April  24,  Thursday.  The  snow  falls  in  loose,  flaky, 
home  feathers.  The  decks  are  wet,  and  the  misty  air 
has  the  peculiar  ground-glass  translucency  which  I 
noticed  last  summer.  When  I  came  up  before  break- 
fast to  look  around,  the  thermometer  gave  +32°,  the 
familiar  temperature  of  old  times :  to  me  it  was  warm 
and  sultry. 

"  The  season  of  summer,  if  not  now  upon  us,  is  close 
at  hand.  It  seems  but  yesterday  that  we  hailed  the 
dawning  day,  and  burned  our  fingers  in  the  frozen 
mercury ;  now  we  have  a  summer  snow-storm  at  32°. 

"  This  little  table  will  show  you  how  stealthily  and 
how  rapidly  summer  has  trampled  down  winter : 

Mean  temperaiuie  .ir  week  ending  Marcli  14th,  — 23°  94'. 
«  «  a       «  ..  u      ai8t,  —9°  07' ;  gain,  14°  87'. 

"      28th,  —16^-  90' ;  loss  7°  83'. 
April  4th,  —4°  31' ;  gain,  12°  39'. 
"     1 1th, -f  8°  59';  gain,  12°  90'. 
"     18th,  4-8°  55' ;  gain,  0°  55'. 


*t 

M 

M 

M 

<i 

M 

M 

M 

u 


"     loin,  -f-tf^  taa- ;  gain,  u*^  56'. 
"    five  days  "    23d,  -f- 14°  56';  gain,  5°  01'. 

I  1  1  ail  r^  .    • 


"  Changes  show  themselves  in  the  configuration  of 


fi.it.nr^i 


A    FOX. 


357 


and 


the  snow  surfaces.  The  hummocks  seem  already  to 
have  diminished  by  evaporation.  They  are  less  angu- 
lar, and  blend  in  rounder  lines  with  the  snow  drifts. 
Night  has  gone.  I  see  still  at  midnight  the  circum- 
polar  stars,  and  Jupiter,  in  his  splendor,  on  the  east- 
em  sky ;  but  T  can  read  at  midnight. 

^^ April  25,  Friday.  Walked  to  open  water  to  the 
northeast.  The  snow  is  melted  through  the  crust.  I 
sink  up  to  my  knees.  Saw  the  tracks  of  a  fox,  very 
recent.  The  little  fellow  had  come  from  the  direction 
of  the  poor  wounded  bear,  now  cut  oflf  from  us  by  the 
broken  ice,  swimming  the  lead  at  its  narrowest  cross- 
ing, some  fifteen  paces.  So  long  as  his  patron  could 
have  supplied  him  with  food,  the  little  parasite  would 
not  have  left  him.  It  may  be  that  the  bear  has  per- 
ished from  inability  to  hunt  for  both. 

"  Saw  a  right  whale !  Saw  also  a  large  flock  of 
geese  at  9  A.M.,  winging  their  way  to  the  northward, 
and  flying  very  low.  They  were  so  irregular  in  their 
order  of  flight,  that  I  would  have  taken  them  for  ducks 
— the  Somateria ;  but  my  messmates  say  geese. 

'^ April  26,  Saturday.  One  of  the  changes  which  we 
must  expect  has  brought  back  to  us  comparative  win- 
ter. Yesterday  gave  us  a  noonday  and  morning  tem- 
perature of +28°.  It  is  now  (10  P.M.)  -9°.  It  was 
—  7°  at  noonday,  with  a  bright,  clear  sunshine.  The 
change  is  due  to  a  northerly  wind.  It  has  blown 
steadily  throughout  the  day  from  northwest  by  north. 
We  hope  much  from  it  in  the  way  of  drift.  Our  lat- 
itude was  69°  W  42'' N ;  our  longitude,  63°  08'  46"  W. 

"  The  wind  change  has  given  us  no  new  ruptures. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  have  shut  up  the  environing  *  leads' 
around  us.  This  may  be  a  good  preface  to  a  squeeze ; 
for  I  can  see  no  water  from  the  mast-head. 


n 


V 

m 


358 


NARWHALS. 


if.;i;.('l 


"The  stars  at  midnight  remind  me  of  our  Lancas- 
ter Sound  noondays.  The  peculiar  zone  of  fairly  blend- 
ed light,  stretching  over  an  amplitude  of  some  seventy 
degrees — the  colors  red,  Indian  red,  Italian  pink,  with 
the  yellows ;  and  then  a  light  cobalt,  gradually  deep- 
ening into  intense  indigo  as  it  reaches  the  northern 
horizon. 

^^ April  27^  Sunday.  The  cold  increases,  and  our 
northwest  wind  continues.  The  day's  observation 
gives  us  69°  35^  50'",  so  that  we  still  go  south  encour- 
agingly, though  slowly.  This  big  floe  is  so  solid,  that 
some  of  us  are  beginning  to  fear  it  may  resist  the  press- 
ure, and  not  break  up  in  the  bay ;  leaving  us  to  the 
thaws  of  summer  and  the  stormy  winds  of  September 
before  our  imprisonment  ceases.  The  apprehension 
has  no  mirth  in  it. 

"Walked  to  the  open  water  to  the  northward,  near- 
ly ahead  of  us.  The  leads  were  so  frozen  over  as  to 
bear  me.  Looking  across  the  level,  letting  my  eyes 
wander  from  tussock  to  tussock  of  entangled  floe-ice, 
as  they  had  grouped  themselves  in  freezing,  I  heard 
the  blowing  of  a  narwhal,  followed  by  the  peculiar 
swash  of  squeezing  ice.  A  short  walk  showed  me 
some  six  or  eight  conical  elevations,  forced  upward 
upon  the  recently-formed  ice,  evidently  by  a  force  pro- 
truding from  beneath.  While  looking  at  these,  the 
sounds,  though  seemingly  further  off,  increased  to  such 
a  degree  tl;R,t  I  was  convinced  the  ice  was  in  action, 
and  staiced  off"  to  double  a  cape  of  hummocks  and  see 
the  comniotion.  Our  steward,  Morton,  a  shrewd,  ol> 
servant  fellow,  who  was  with  me,  suddenly  called  out, 
'  Look  here,  sir — here !' 

"Each  of  these  little  cones  was  steaming  like  the 
salices  or  mud- volcanoes  of  Mexico,  the  broken  ice  on 


RETURNING    LIGHT. 


359 


top  vibrating,  and  every  now  and  then  tumbling,  as 
if  by  some  pulsatory  movement  below.  Presently,  in 
one  concerted  diapason,  a  group  of  narwhals,  impris- 
oned by  the  congelation  of  the  opening,*  spouted  their 
release,  scattering  spray  and  snow  in  every  direction. 
I  was  not  more  than  three  yards  from  the  nearest 
cone ;  yet  I  could  see  nothing  of  the  animal  except 
this  jet. 

"  The  noise  was  so  great  that  I  could  hardly  make 
the  steward  hear  me.  It  had,  moreover,  more  of  voice 
mingled  with  its  sibilant  *  blow'  than  I  had  ever  heard 
— a  distinct  and  somewhat  metallic  tone,  thrown  out 
impulsively,  and  yet  with  the  crescendo  and  diminu- 
endo of  an  expiration.  According  to  the  views  of  some 
systematic  naturalists,  the  cetacea  have,  strictly  speak- 
ing, no  voice.  This  opinion  admits  of  much  modifica- 
tion. The  white  whale  in  Wellington  Sound  whis- 
tled while  submerged  and  swimming  under  our  brig ; 
and,  in  the  present  singular  case,  the  ejaculatory  char- 
acter  of  the  tone  sounded  like  a  gigantic  bark.f 

"  May  1,  Thursday.  A  little  before  ten  this  morning, 
the  sun  showed  almost  half  his  disk  above  the  snow  ho- 
rizon, with  his  usual  appanage  of  pearly  opals  and  mel- 
lowed fire  displayed  about  the  southern  heavens.  At 
noon  I  walked  out  in  the  full  glare,  twenty-five  degrees 
above  the  freezing-point  on  my  face,  and  about  as  many 
below  it  on  my  back — a  May-day  frolic  in  the  snow ! 


%■  i  -' 


*  I  round  afterward  from  the  Danes  that  they  assemble  in  this  way  when  ex- 
tensive areas  are  frozen.  Mr.  Moldrup,  of  Godhaven,  mentions  fifty  being  killed 
at  one  of  these  congregations. 

t  On  this  occasion,  I  heard  the  white  whale  singing  under  water — a  peculiar 
note  between  the  whistle  and  the  Tyrolean  yodel.  Our  men  compared  it  to 
the  Jews-harp.  Once,  off  Cape  James,  it  was  so  loud  that  we  heard  it  in  the 
cabin,  as  if  proceeding  from  the  cable-tier.  I  have  often,  in  my  walks  over  the 
ice-openings,  been  startled  by  the  resemblancd  between  the  sudden  spout  of  a 
near  narwhal  and  the  bark  of  an  animal. 


I 


14 


360 


THE    SCURVY. 


H'^ 


p;«,'  M 


»"i 


4h 


The  crisp  covering,  over  which  I  used  to  skim  along  a 
few  weeks  ago,  broke  through  with  me  at  every  step.  It 
was  just  strong  enough  to  tantalize  and  deceive.  Nev- 
er, in  the  warmest  days  of  summer  harvest-time,  have 
I  felt  the  heat  so  much  as  on  this  Arctic  May-day ;  and 
yet  no  life,  no  organization  carried  me  back  to  the 
spring-time  of  reviving  nature.  Even  the  tinnitus  of 
the  idle  ear,  that  inner  droning  that  sings  to  you  in  the 
silent  sunshine  at  home,  was  wanting.  In  fact,  the  si- 
lentness  was  so  complete,  and  the  reflection  from  the 
snow  so  excessive,  though  I  had  a  green  rag  over  my 
face,  that  when  I  got  far  away,  and  out  of  sight  of  ev- 
ery  thing  but  the  interminable  ice,  it  made  me  feel  as 
if  the  world  I  left  you  in  and  the  world  about  me  were 
not  exactly  parts  of  the  same  planet. 

"  And  so  I  traveled  back  to  my  sick  men.  God 
bless  us !  here  are  old  Blinn,  and  Carter,  and  Wilson, 
all  on  my  list  for  fainting  spells :  the  same  scurvy  syn- 
cope our  officers  complain  of.  Captain  Griffin  faint- 
ed dead  away,  and  Lovell  complains  of  strange  feel- 
ings. We  need  fresh  food  sorely.  I  hardly  think  any 
organized  expedition  to  these  regions  was  ever  so  com- 
pletely deprived  of  anti-scorbutic  diet  as  we  are  at  this 
time. 

"  Midnight.  My  old  scurvy  symptoms,  it  may  be, 
that  keep  me  from  sleeping.  But  I  write  by  the  light 
of  the  sun ;  and  it  really  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a 
something  about  this  persistent  day  antagonistic  to 
sleep.  The  idea  thrust  itself  upon  me  \.xst  summer. 
Thinking  the  fact  over  afterward,  I  referred  it  to  hab- 
it, acting  unphilosophically,  as  it  is  apt  to  do ;  and 
concluded  that  my  sleeplessness  was  not  connected 
directly  with  the  augmented  or  continued  light.  But 
this  is  not  so.    I  neither  get  to  sleep  so  easily  nor  sleep 


SNOW    BLINDNESS. 


361 


as  long,  nor,  indeed,  do  I  seem  to  need  the  same  quan- 
tity of  sleep  as  when  we  had  the  alternation  of  light 
and  darkness.  On  the  other  hand,  I  think  our  long 
Arctic  night  solicited  a  more  than  common  ration  of 
the  same  restorative  blessing,  though  my  journal  has 
shown  you  that  our  waking  energies  during  that  peri- 
od were  not  so  heavily  taxed  as  to  require  more  than 
their  usual  intermission." 

The  day  after  this  entry  superadded  the  visitation 
of  snow  blindness  to  our  trials.  Four  of  the  party 
were  attacked  severely,  myself  among  the  rest;  so 
severely,  indeed,  as  to  make  it  impossible  for  me  to 
write,  and,  what  was  much  more  important  in  the  es- 
timation of  our  scurvy  patients,  impossible  for  me  to 
hunt.  The  brief  notes  which  were  made  in  my  journal 
by  thb  i'ldness  of  a  brother  officer  speak  of  our  sensi- 
ble approach  toward  a  final  disengagement  from  the 
ice-field.  Though  the  winds  were  generally  from  the 
southwest,  our  drift  tended  very  plainly  to  the  south : 
in  one  day,  we  reduced  our  latitude  eighteen  miles, 
passing  at  the  same  time  nearly  a  degree  of  longitude, 
twenty-two  miles  to  the  ea£;t.  The  ice,  too,  was  be- 
coming more  infiltrated,  and  the  heavy  snow-banks 
that  surrounded  our  vessel  were  saturated  with  water. 
Spring  was  doing  its  office. 


:?  , 


*   i    1 

• 

J' 

1! 

P    '    \ 

&! 

1 

CUTTINO  OUT,   MAY,  IbSl. 


CHAPTER  XL. 


On  the  11th,  I  was  well  enough,  or  imprudent 
enough,  to  attempt  a  seal  hunt.  Our  mean  temper- 
ature had  sunk  to  19°  5^,  and  the  snow-crust  was 
strong  enough  to  hear.  A  gale  had  swept  away  the 
loose,  fleecy  drifts  of  the  fortnight  hefore,  exposing  the 
familiar  surface  of  the  older  snow.  I  walked  over  it 
as  I  did  in  April. 

"Reaching  the  seat  of  the  open  water  to  the  north- 
ward, I  found  it  closed  hy  young  ice,  an  extensive 
surface  frail  and  unsafe.  About  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  edge  of  the  old  floe,  almost  in  the  centre  of 
this  recent  lead,  was  a  seal.  The  temptations  of  the 
flesh  were  too  much  for  me :  I  ventured  the  ice,  crawl- 
ed on  my  belly,  and  reached  long-shot  distance. 

The  animal  thus  laboriously  stalked  was  large;  a 
hirsute,  bearded  fellow,  with  the  true  plantigrade 
countenance.    All  his  senses  were  devoted  to  enjoy- 


CUTTING    OUT. 


363 


ment:  he  wallowed  in  the  sludge,  stretched  out  in 
the  sunshine,  played  with  his  flippers,  lying  on  his 
hack,  much  as  a  heavy  horse  does  in  a  skin-loosening 
roll.  I  rose  to  fire — and  down  he  went.  An  unseen 
hole  had  received  hiin:  a  lesson  for  future  occasions. 
This  hole  was  critically  circular,  heveled  from  the 
under  surface,  and  symmetrically  emhanked  round 
with  the  pulpacious  material  which  he  had  excava- 
ted from  the  ice. 

"  Crawling  back  less  actively  than  I  had  approach- 
ed, my  carbine  arm  broke  through,  carrying  my  gun 
and  it  up  to  the  shoulder.  It  was  very  well,  all 
things  considered,  that  my  body  did  not  follow;  for  I 
was  on  a  very  rotten  shell,  and  nearly  two  miles  from 
the  brigs,  alone. 

"  Wednesday  12.  For  the  last  fortnight,  our  ice-saw, 
under  Murdaugh's  supervision,  has  been  hard  at  work. 
To-day  we  have  a  trench  opened  to  our  gangway. 

"The  ice  shows  the  advancing  season.  It  is  no 
longer  splintery  and  quartz-like,  spawling  off  under 
the  axe  in  dangerous  little  chips;  but  sodden,  infil- 
trated ice,  such  as  we  see  in  our  ice-houses.  The 
water  has  got  into  its  centre,  and  the  crow-bars,  after 
the  sawing  out,  break  it  readily  up  for  hauling  upon 
the  field.  The  process  is  this :  First,  we  cut  two  par- 
allel tracks,  four  feet  asunder,  through  six  and  five  feet 
ice,  with  a  ten-foot  saw ;  then  lozenged  diagonals ;  then 
straps  (ropes)  are  passed  around  the  fragments,  and  a 
block  and  line,  nautice  jigger,  or  watch  tackle,  made 
fast  to  the  bowsprit,  hauls  the  lumps  upon  the  floe, 
where  they  are  broken  up  by  the  ice  bars.  A  formi- 
dable barricade  of  dirty  ice,  about  the  size  and  shape 
of  gneiss  building  stones,  is  already  inclosing  our  ves- 
sel.   Many  a  poor  fellow  has  had  an  involuntary  slide- 


if 


\  1 


f^ 


it'' 


364 


SCURVY. 


bath  into  the  freezing  mixture  alongside ;  but  in  most 
cases  without  unpleasant  consequences." 

I  remember  only  one  serious  exception.  It  was 
that  of  our  heroine  of  the  Thespian  corps,  Jim  Smith. 
The  immediate  result  for  him  was  an  attack  of  scurvy, 
so  marked,  yet  so  blended  with  the  active  symptoms 
belonging  to  arthritic  disease,  as  to  incline  me  to  an 
opinion  for  the  time  that  there  may  be  such  a  thing 
as  acute  scurvy,  or  a  sudden  inflammatory  sthenic 
action,  whose  characteristics  are  scorbutic.  He  had 
immediately  stitch,  dyspnoea,  pains  in  the  back  and 
joints,  and  in  the  alveolar  and  extensor  muscles,  just 
as  in  his  previous  attacks  of  scurvy,  but  without  fever. 
The  day  after,  he  was  so  distressed  by  his  stitch,  that 
I  feared  pleuritis.  On  looking  at  his  shins,  I  found 
large  purpuric  blotches,  which  were  not  there  a  week 
before.  I  commenced  the  anti-scorbutic  tyranny  at 
once ;  and  the  next  morning  his  gums  bled  freely,  his 
pains  left  him,  and  he  took  his  place  again  at  the  ice- 
saw. 

"  Several  laridsB  flew  about  us :  I  heard  them  to-day 
for  the  second  time — pleasant  tones,  with  all  their  dis- 
cord. Do  you  remember  the  skylark's  song,  *  a  drop- 
ping from  the  sky,'  in  the  'Ancient  Mariner?'  I 
thouglxt  of  it  this  morning  when  the  gulls  screeched 
over  our  motionless  brig. 

^^May  18,  Sunday.  First,  of  late,  in  my  daily  records 
is  this  glorious  wind,  still  from  the  northwest,  fresh 
and  steady.  It  is,  as  is  every  thing  else  for  that  mat- 
ter, a  Godsend.  To-day's  observation  places  us  but 
thirty-two  miles  from  Cape  Searle,  and  seventy  from 
Cape  Walsingham,  the  abutting  gate  of  Davis's  Straits, 
where  the  channel  is  at  its  narrowest,  and  where  our 
imprisonment  ought  to  end. 


COSTUMK. 


365 


"  This  welcome  wind-visitor  is  still  freshening :  it 
is  not  perpetrating,  I  hope,  an  extra  brilliancy  before 
its  conge. 

"  I  found  to-day  a  rough  caricature  drawing  by  one 
of  the  men :  some  of  the  mess  call  it  a  portrait  of  my- 
self. By-the-way,  suppose  I  tell  you  of  my  latest  rig  t 
Here  it  is.  A  long  musket  on 
shoulder ;  a  bear  knife  in  the  leg 
of  the  left  boot ;  a  rim  of  wolf- 
skin around  my  head,  leaving  the 
bare  scalp  with  its  ^hairs'  open 
to  the  breeze  ;  rough  Guernsey 
frock,  overlined  by  a  red  flannel 
shirt,  in  honor  of  the  day  on  which 
thou  shalt  do  no  labor;  legs  in 
sailor  pants  of  pilot  cloth,  slop-shop 
cut ;  feet  in  seal-hide  socks  or  bus- 
kins, of  Esquimaux  fabric  and  Es- 
quimaux smell ;  a  pair  of  crimson 
woolen  mittens,  which  commenced 
their  career  as  a  neck  comforter; 
and  a  little  green  rag,  the  snow  veil,  fluttering  over  a 
weather-beaten  face :  place  all  this,  for  want  of  a  bet- 
ter lay  figure,  on  your  brother  of  the  Arctic  squadron. 

"  With  a  delicacy  which  may  possibly  do  me  dis- 
credit, I  have  never  before  alluded  to  the  garniture  of 
my  outer  man.  I  may  as  well  tell  the  truth  at  once. 
We  are  an  uncouth,  snobby,  and  withal,  shabby-look 
ing  set  of  varlets.  L'illustre  Bertrand  would  be  a 
very  Beau  Brummel  alongside  of  us.  We  are  shabby, 
because  we  have  worn  out  all  our  flimsy  wardrobes, 
and  have  of  late  resorted  to  domestic  tailorization. 
We  are  snobby,  because  our  advance  in  the  new  art 
does  not  yet  extend  to  the  picturesque  or  well-fitting. 


i:'3 


i 

I 


til 


V 


h 


^  P 

t 


366 


COSTUME. 


l;^' 


>>w 


i..k 


¥(' 


I  wish  some  of  my  soda-water-in-the-morning  club 
friends  could  see  me  perspiring  over  a  pair  of  pants, 
dorcassing  a  defunct  sock.  We  do  our  own  sewing, 
clothing  ourselves  cap-a-pie ;  and  it  astonishes  me, 
looking  back  upon  my  dark  period  of  previous  igno- 
rance, to  feel  how  much  I  have  learned.  I  wonder 
whether  your  friend  the  Philadelphia  D'Orsay  knows 
how  to  adjust  with  a  ruler  and  a  lump  of  soap  the  seat 
of  a  pair  of  breeches  ? 

"  Why,  I  have  even  made  discoveries  in — I  forget 
the  Greek  word  for  it — the  art  which  made  George 
the  Fourth  so  famous.  Thus  a  method,  adopted  by 
our  mess,  of  cutting  five  pair  of  stockings  out  of  one 
hammock  blanket — a  thing  hitherto  deemed  impossi- 
ble— is  altogether  my  own.  In  the  abstract  or  specu- 
lative part  of  the  profession,  I  claim  to  be  the  first  who 
has  reduced  all  vestiture  to  a  primitive  form — an  in- 
tegral particle,  as  it  were.  I  can't  dwell  on  this  mat- 
ter here :  it  might,  perhaps,  be  out  of  place ;  perhaps, 
too,  attributed  in  some  degree  to  that  personal  vanity 
almost  inseparable  from  invention.  I  will  tell  you, 
however,  that  this  discovered  type,  this  radical  nucleus, 
is  the  'bag.'  Thus  a  bag,  or  a  couple  of  parallelo- 
gramic  planes  sewed  together,  makes  the  covering  of 
the  trunk.  Similar  bags  of  scarcely  varied  proportion 
cover  the  arms  ;  ditto  the  legs ;  ditto  the  hands  ;  ditto 
the  head :  thus  going  on,  bags,  bags,  bags,  even  to  the 
lingers ;  a  cytoblastic  operation,  having  interesting  an- 
alogies with  the  mycelium  of  the  fungus  or  the  sac- 
cine  vegetation  of  the  confervas. 

"  All  this  is  a  digression,  perhaps ;  yet  I  am  not  the 
first  traveler  whose  breeches  have  figured  in  his  diary 
of  wonders :  you  remember  the  geometrical  artist  of 
Laputa  who  re-enforced  the  wardrobe  of  Mr.  Gulliver. 


LAND. 


367 


But  to  return  to  less  ambitious  topics.  The  birds,  in 
spite  of  the  increasing  wind,  fly  over  in  numbers,  all 
seeking  the  mysterious  north.  What  is  there  at  this 
unreached  pole  to  attract  and  sustain  such  hordes  of 
migratory  life  ?  Since  the  day  before  yesterday,  the 
16th,  we  can  not  be  on  deck  at  any  hour,  night  or  day 
— they  are  one  now — without  seeing  small  bodies, 
rather  groups  than  flocks,  on  their  way  to  the  unknown 
feeding  or  breeding  grounds.  Toward  the  west  the 
field  of  a  telescope  is  constantly  crossed  by  these  de- 
tachments. The  ducks  are  now  scarce :  in  fact,  they 
have  been  few  from  the  beginning.  Geese  are  seen 
only  in  the  forenoon  and  early  morning.  The  guille- 
mots, also,  are  not  so  numerous  as  they  were  two  days 
ago ;  but  from  to-day  we  date  the  reappearance  of  the 
little  Auk.  This  delicious  little  pilgrim  is  now  on  his 
way  to  his  far  north  breeding  grounds.  Toward  the 
open  lead  the  groups  fly  low,  sometimes  doubtless 
pausing  to  refresh.  At  the  water's  edge  I  shot  five, 
the  first  game  of  the  season ;  and  most  valuable  they 
were  to  our  scurvy  men.  If  this  snow  blindness  per- 
mits me,  I  hope  to-morrow  to  prove  myself  a  more 
lucky  sportsman. 

^^May  19,  Monday.  Jim  Smith,  little  Jim  Smith, 
reported  '  Land.'  We  have  become  so  accustomed  to 
this  great  sameness  of  snow,  that  it  was  hard  to  real- 
ize at  first  the  magnitude  of  our  drift.  Our  last  land 
was  the  spectral  elevation  upreared  in  the  sunset  sky 
of  the  9tli  of  February.  The  land  itself  must  have 
been  eighty  miles  off".  Our  drift,  although  now  not 
absolutely  fixed  by  observation,  has  probably  carried 
us  to  within  forty  miles,  perhaps  thirty,  of  Cape  Searle. 
Land  it  certainly  is,  shadowy,  high,  snow-covered,  and 
strange.    It  is  ninety-nine  days  since  we  looked  at  the 


1  ! 


I..:  \ 


f^rJ 


Ir     >f 


:?■■■ 


1)  '' 


368 


CUTTING    OUT. 


refracted  tops  of  the  Lancaster  Bay  headlands,  our  last 
land. 

"Mat/  20,  Tuesday.  So  snow-blind  that  I  can  bare- 
ly see  to  write.  A  gau7,y  film  floats  between  me  and 
every  thing  else.  I  have  been  walking  twelve  miles 
upon  the  ice.  No  sun,  but  a  peculiar  misty,  opalescent 
glare.  I  bagged  thirty-three  Auks ;  but  my  snow- 
blindness  avenges  them." 

For  some  days  after  this  entry  my  snow-blindness 
unfitted  me  for  active  duty.  Several  of  the  oflScers 
and  men  shared  the  visitation.  Captain  De  Haven 
more  severely  than  any  of  us.  My  next  quotation 
from  my  journal  dates  of  the  24th. 

"May  24,  Saturday.  The  ship  shows  signs  of  change, 
grating  a  little  in  her  icy  cradle,  and  rising  at  least 
nine  inches  forward.  The  work  of  removing  the  ice 
goes  on  painfully,  but  constantly.  The  blocks  are  now 
hoisted  with  winch  and  capstan  by  a  purchase  from 
the  fore-yard ;  fhe  saw,  of  course,  pioneering.  The 
blocks  when  taken  out  resemble  great  break-water 
stones,  measuring  sometimes  eight  by  six  feet. 

"  Thus  far,  by  peryevering  labor,  we  have  cut  a  four- 
feet  wide  trench  to  our  starboard  gangway,  a  little 
vacant  pool  of  six  yards  by  three  in  our  bows,  and  a 
second  trench  now  reaching  amidships  of  our  fore- 
chains. 

"  The  difference  of  level  between  the  deck  at  our 
bows  and  stern  is  still  five  feet  three  inches.  It  is 
proposed  to  launch  the  brig,  as  it  were,  from  her  ice- 
ways.  To  this  purpose  a  screw  jack  is  to  be  applied 
aft,  and  strong  purchases  on  the  ice  ahead.  The  ex- 
periment will  take  place  this  afternoon.  We  have 
now  been  five  months  and  a  half,  since  the  seventh 
of  December,  living  on  an  inclined  plane  of  about  one 
foot  in  sixteen. 


ARCTIC    VOYAGERS. 


369 


"10  P.M.  The  effort  failed,  as  no  doubt  it  ought 
to  have  done :  we  must  wait  for  the  great  break-up 
to  give  us  an  even  keel.  From  the  mast-head  we 
can  see  encroachments  all  around.  The  plains,  over 
which  I  chased  bear  and  shot  at  Auks,  are  now  wa- 
ter. The  floe  is  reduced  to  its  old  winter  dimensions, 
three  miles  in  one  diameter,  five  in  the  other.  We 
have  not  yet  reached  the  narrow  passage;  and  the 
wind,  now  from  the  southward,  seems  to  be  holding 
us  back.  Strange  as  it  sounds,  wo  are  in  hopes  of  a 
break-up  at  Cape  Walsingham. 

^^May  25,  Sunday.  Howling  a  perfect  gale ;  drift 
impenetrable.  By  some  providential  interference  the 
wind  returned  last  night  to  its  old  quarter,  the  north- 
west, a  direction  corresponding  with  the  trend  of  the 
shore.  It  is  undoubtedly  driving  us  fast  to  the  south- 
ward, and  is,  of  all  quarters,  that  most  favorable  to  a 
passage  without  disruption.  Once  past  Cape  Walsing- 
ham, the  expansion  of  the  bay  is  sudden  and  extensive. 
If,  then,  our  floe  maintains  its  integrity  through  the 
strait,  the  relief  from  pressure  may  allow  us  to  con- 
tinue our  drifting  journey.     So  at  least  we  argue. 

"  And  just  so,  it  may  be,  others  have  argued  before 
us  about  chances  of  escape  that  never  came :  there 
is  a  cycle  even  in  the  history  of  adventure.  It  makes 
me  sad  sometimes  when  I  think  of  the  fruitless  la- 
bors of  the  men  who  in  the  very  olden  times  har- 
assed themselves  with  these  perplexing  seas.  There 
have  been  Sir  John  Franklins  before,  and  searchers 
too,  who  in  searching  shared  the  fate  of  those  they 
sought  after.  It  is  good  food  for  thought  here,  while 
I  am  of  and  among  them,  to  recall  the  heart-burnings 
and  the  failures,  the  famishings  and  the  freezings,  the 
silent,  unrecorded  transits  of  *  y^  Arctic  voyageres.' 

Aa 


',1  1«    ij  I 


':! 


W'\ 


370 


ARCTIC    VOYAGERS. 


"  Mount  Raleigh,  named  by  sturdy  old  John  Davis 
*  a  brave  mount,  the  cliffes  whereof  were  as  orient  as 
golde,'  shows  itself  still,  not  so  glittering  as  he  saw 
it  two  hundred  and  sixty-five  years  ago,  but  a  *  brave 
mount'  notwithstanding.  No  Christian  eyes  have 
ever  gazed  in  May  time  on  its  ice-defended  slope,  ex- 
cept our  own.  Yet  there  it  stands,  as  imperishable  as 
the  name  it  bears. 

"  I  could  fill  my  journal  with  the  little  histories  of 
this  very  shore.  The  Cape  of  God's  Mercy  is  ahead 
of  us  to  the  west,  as  it  was  ahead  of  the  man  who 
named  it.  The  meta  incognita,  further  on,  is  still 
as  unknown  as  in  the  days  of  Frobisher.  We  have 
passed,  by  the  inevitable  coercion  of  ice,  from  the 
highest  regions  of  Arctic  exploration,  the  lands  of 
Parry,  and  Ross,  and  Franklin,  to  the  lowest,  the  seats 
of  the  early  search  for  Cathay,  the  lands  of  Cabot, 
and  Davis,  and  Baffin,  the  graves  of  Cortereal,  and 
Gilbert,  and  Hudson — all  seekers  after  shadows.  Men 
still  seek  Cathay." 


lih 


SEALS  AT  PLAY. 


IP  s  i;j 


CHAPTER  XLI. 


"  The  storm  broke  in  the  early  morning  hours.  We 
have  drifted  more  than  sixteen  miles  since  Saturday. 
The  true  bearing  of  the  prominent  cape  we  supposed 
to  be  Cape  Walsingham  was  found  by  solar  distance 
to  be  S.  63°  W. ;  while  our  observed  position,  by  me- 
ridian altitude  and  chronometers,  placed  us  but  four 
miles  north  of  Exeter  Bay.  Either,  then,  the  protrud- 
ing cape  is  not  Walsingham,  or  our  chronometers  are 
at  fault.  This  latter  is  probably  the  case ;  for  if  the 
coast  line  be  correctly  laid  down  on  the  charts,  the 
true  bearing  cited  above,  projected  from  one  present 
parallel  of  latitude,  would  place  us  thirty-six  miles 
from  the  cape.     More  likely  this  than  so  near  Exeter. 

"Our  latitude  is  about  66°  5V,  a  very  few  miles 
north  of  the  projecting  headland,  the  western  Gades 
of  our  strait.  The  character  of  the  land  is  rugged 
and  inhospitable.  Ridges,  offsetting  from  the  higher 
range,  project  in  spurs  laterally,  creviced  and  water- 
worn,  but  to  seaward  escarped  and  bluff.  Some  of 
these  are  mural  and  precipitous,  of  commanding  height. 
The  main  range  does  not  retire  very  far  from  the  sea ; 
it  seems  to  follow  the  trend  of  the  peninsula,  and  most 
probably  on  the  Greenland  shore  is  but  the  abutment 
of  a  plateau.  Its  culminating  points  are  not  numer- 
ous :  the  highest,  Mount  Raleigh,  is,  by  my  vague  es- 
timate, about  fifteen  hundred  feet  high. 


ij    m 


«    ft 


I  a. 


y 


it'    A 


372 


DRIFT. 


1 

%^'m 

1 

^m 

1 

"  May  27.  The  land  is  very  near  to  the  eye ;  but  in 
these  regions  we  have  learned  to  distrust  ocular  meas- 
urements of  distance.  Though  we  see  every  wrinkle, 
even  to  the  crows'  feet,  on  the  cheeks  of  Mount  Ra- 
leigh, I  remember  last  year,  on  the  west  coast  of  Green- 
land, we  saw  almost  under  our  nose  land  that  was 
thirty-five  miles  off.  A  party  from  the  Rescue  meas- 
ured a  base  upon  the  ice  to-day,  and  attempted  trig- 
onometrical measurements  with  sextant  angles.  They 
make  Cape  Walsingham  seven  miles  distant,  and  the 
height  of  the  peak  at  the  cape  fifteen  hundred  feet. 
Our  observation  places  us  in  latitude  66°  42^  40'^;  our 
longitude  by  time  sights,  at  5h.  43m.  P.M.,  was  60° 
54\  According  to  the  Admiralty  chart,  this  plants  us 
high  and  dry  among  the  mountains  of  Cape  Walsing- 
ham. 

"It  is  evident  that  our  rate  of  drift  has  increased. 
The  northwest  winds  carried  us  forward  eight  miles 
a  day  while  near  the  strait — a  speed  only  equaled  in 
a  few  of  the  early  days  of  our  escape  from  Lancaster 
Sound.  What  has  become  of  all  the  ice  that  used  to 
be  intervening  between  us  and  the  shore  ?  At  one 
time  we  had  a  distance  of  ninety  miles :  we  are  now 
close  upon  the  coast.  What  has  become  of  it  ?  If  it 
moves  at  the  same  rate  as  we  do,  why  hr^ive  we  no 
squeezing  and  commotion  at  this  narrow  strait  ?  Can 
it  be  that  the  ice  to  the  westward  of  us  has  been  more 
or  less  fixed  to  the  land  floe,  and  that  \/e  have  been 
drifting  down  in  a  race-course,  as  it  were,  an  ice-river 
whose  banks  were  this  same  shore  ice  ?  Or  is  it,  as 
Murdaugli  suggests,  that  the  in-shore  currents,  more 
rapid,  have  carried  down  the  in-shore  ice  before  us, 
thus  widening  the  pathway  for  us  ?  It  is  certainly 
very  puzzling  to  find  ourselves,  at  the   narrowest 


REFRACTION. 


373 


passage,  close  into  the  land ;  and  no  commotion,  no 
disturbance.  On  the  contrary,  from  the  mast-head 
abundant  open  water  meets  the  eye;  and  could  we 
escape  from  our  imprisoning,  but — thankfully  I  say 
it — protecting  floe,  we  might  soon  be  moving  in  open 
seas. 

"  May  28,  Wednesday.  The  fact  of  the  day  is  the 
rotation  of  our  floe.  In  spite  of  its  irregular  shape,  it 
has  rotated  a  complete  circle  within  the  past  twenty- 
four  hours.  It  is  still  turning  at  the  same  rate,  wheel- 
ing us  down  along  the  in-shore  fields.  The  Rescue, 
early  this  morning,  was  between  us  and  the  land: 
tho  evening  before,  the  same  land  was  astern  of  us. 
Strange  that  no  rupture  takes  place ! 

^^  May  29,  Thursday.  I  have  just  been  witnessing 
one  of  the  oddest  of  Arctic  freaks.  We  were  all  of  us 
engaged  in  tracing  out  the  rugged  indentations  on 
Mount  Raleigh,  as  the  floe  was  rolling  our  vessels 
slowly  along  past  Cape  Walsingham,  when,  at  live 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon — the  thermometer  at  27°,  the 
barometer  at  30.31,  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  usual 
pearly  opalescence — the  captain,  sweeping  shoreward 
with  his  glass,  saw  a  large  pyramidal  hummock,  with 
a  well-defined  figure  projecting  in  front  of  it,  evident- 
ly animated  and  moving.  Murdaugh,  looking  after- 
ward, declared  it  '  a  man.'  I  saw  it  next,  a  large 
human  figure,  covered  with  a  cloak,  and  motionless. 
Murdaugh  took  the  glass  again,  and  holding  it  to  his 
eye,  suddenly  exclaimed,  '  It  moves :'  *  it  spreads  out 
its  arms :'  '  it  is  a  gigantic  bird !' 

"  The  hummock  was  within  a  nolle  of  us.  The 
words  were  hardly  uttered  before  the  object  had  dis- 
appeared, and  the  white  snow  was  without  a  speck. 
A  discussion  followed.     The  size  made  us  at  once  re- 


i  I  i 


J  f 


I 


i  H    ^= 


i 


i   I 


i 

c|! 


374 


A    BEAR    KILLED. 


r^     > 


r 


irnxK  S 


ject  the  bird  idea:  the  shape,  too,  was  that  of  a  cloak- 
covered  man;  the  motion,  as  if  he  had  opened  his 
mantle-covered  arms.  Convinced  that  it  was  a  hu- 
man being,  an  Esquimaux  astray  upon  the  ice,  Mur- 
daugh  and  myself  started  oflf,  nearing  the  hummock 
with  hearts  full  of  expectation.  The  traces  on  the 
soft  snow  would  soon  solve  the  mystery,  and  remove 
our  only  doubt,  whether  the  Rescues  might  not  be 
playing  us  a  trick. 

"  Whatever  it  was,  it  either  did  not  perceive  us  ap- 
proaching, or  was  willing  to  avoid  us ;  for  it  kept  it- 
self hidden  behind  a  crag.  Reaching,  however,  the 
spot  where  it  had  stood,  we  found  traces,  coprolitic 
and  recent,  of  a  bird ;  footprints,  as  a  learned  professor 
would  have  said,  of  certain  familiar  animal  processes, 
exaggerated  and  dignified  by  those  of  refraction. 

"On  returning  to  the  brig,  the  watchers  told  us 
that  we  had  been  ourselves  curiously  distorted ;  and 
that,  when  perched  on  the  little  icy  crag  we  had  gone 
to  scrutinize,  we  lengthened  vertically  into  gigantic 
forms.  The  position  of  the  bird,  probably  a  glaucous 
gull,  had  been  breast  toward  the  brig :  a  vertical  en- 
largement, with  the  white  body  and  moving  wings, 
explained  the  phenomenon. 

"The  'Rescues'  had  a  very  large  bear  hovering 
around  them  all  this  morning.  At  one  P.M.  he  came 
within  reach  of  a  carefully-prepared  ambush,  receiv- 
ing four  out  of  a  half  dozen  balls,  a  number  soon  in- 
creased to  nine.  You  may  have  some  idea  of  the  su- 
perb tenacity  of  life  of  this  beast,  when  I  tell  you  that 
he  ran,  thus  perforated,  with  his  skull  broken  and  his 
shoulder  shivered.  He  even  attempted  a  charge,  ut- 
tering  a  hissing  sound,  ejaculated  by  sudden  impuli;G, 
like  the  *  blowing  of  a  whale,'  to  use  Captain  Griffin's 


'   / 


,|N       '  ! 


HABITS    OF    A    SEAL. 


375 


comparison.  He  measured  eight  feet  five  inches,  only 
three  inches  less  than  my  own  big  trophy,  which,  with 
one  exception,  is  the  largest  recorded  in  the  stories  of 
the  Polar  American  hunt.  What  a  glorious  feed  for 
the  scurvy-stricken  ships ! 

"  To-day,  for  the  first  time,  we  had  a  Tide,  made  ev- 
ident by  the  changing  phases  of  the  shore.  We  made 
southing  in  the  forenoon :  now,  at  half  past  eight  P.M., 
the  alignment  of  the  hills  shows  a  northward  drift. 
The  ice  is  unchanged :  our  floe  is  rotating  from  west 
to  south,  against  the  sun,  but  not  equably.  We  crossed 
the  Arctic  circle  at  some  unknown  hour  this  forenoon. 
To  the  eye  every  thing  is  as  before  ;  yet  it  cheats  one 
into  pleasant  thoughts.  I  do  not  wish  to  see  a  mid- 
night sun  again. 

^^May  30.  The  seal  are  out  upon  the  ice,  one  of  the 
most  certain  of  the  signs  of  summer.  They  are  few 
in  number,  and  very  cautious.  We  notice  that  they 
invariably  select  an  open  floe  for  their  hole,  and  that 
they  never  leave  it  more  than  a  few  lengths.  Their 
alertness  is  probably  due  to  their  vigilant  enemy,  the 
bear.  Sometimes  you  will  see  them  frolicking  togeth- 
er like  a  parcel  of  swimming  school-boys ;  sometimes 
they  are  solitary,  but  keenly  alive  always  to  the  en- 
joyment of  the  sunshine.  I  have  often  crawled  with- 
in fair  eye-shot,  and,  seated  behind  a  concealing  lump 
of  ice,  watched  their  movements. 

"  The  first  act  of  a  seal,  after  emerging,  is  a  careful 
survey  of  his  limited  horizon.  For  this  purpose  he 
rises  on  his  fore  flippers,  and  stretches  his  neck  in  a 
manner  almost  dog-like.  This  maneuver,  even  during 
apparently  complete  silence,  is  repeated  every  few 
minutes.  He  next  commences  with  his  hind  or  hori- 
zontal flippers  and  tail  a  most  singular  movement, 


,1  ^< 


l!i 


0: 
t,. 


4 


;  i'      4  ■  ■  '• 


Si  6 
ill 


H 


i 


ni 


,rM-:\   i' 


^^m 


376 


SEAL    HUNTING. 


allied  to  sweeping  ;  brushing  nervously,  as  if  either  to 
rub  something  from  himself  or  from  beneath  him. 
Then  comes  a  complete  series  of  attitudes,  stretching, 
collapsing,  curling,  wagging ;  then  a  luxurious,  bask- 
ing rest,  with  his  face  toward  the  sun  and  his  tail  to 
his  hole.  Presently  he  waddles  oflf  about  two  of  his 
own  awkward  lengths  from  his  retreat,  and  begins  to 
roll  over  and  over,  pawing  in  the  most  ludicrous  man- 
ner into  the  empty  air,  stretching  and  rubbing  his 
glossy  hide  like  a  horse.  He  then  recommences  his 
vigil,  basking  in  the  sun  with  uneasy  alertness  for 
hours.  At  the  slightest  advance,  up  goes  the  prying 
head.  One  searching  glance  ;  and,  wheeling  on  his 
tail  as  on  a  pivot,  he  is  at  his  hole,  and  descends  head 
foremost. 

"  I  have  watched  so  many  without  success,  that  to- 
night I  determined  to  try  the  Esquimaux  plan — pa- 
tience and  a  snow-screen.  This  latter,  the  easier  por- 
tion of  the  fonnula,  I  have  just  returned  from  complet- 
ing ;  it  was  a  mile's  walk  and  an  hour's  snow-shovel- 
ing. The  other,  the  patience,  I  attempt  to-morrow, 
*  squat  like  a  toad'  on  the  ice  for  an  unknown  series 
of  hours,  with  the  sun  blistering  my  nose,  and  blink- 
ing my  eyes  the  while ;  a  sort  of  sport  so  much  like 
fishing,  that  it  ought  to  be  reserved  for  the  Piscators 
of  our  Schuylkill  Club. 

"  The  walk  over  the  snow  to-night  was  very  delight- 
ful. The  opalescence,  so  painful  to  the  eyes,  had  giv- 
en place  to  a  clear  atmosphere ;  and  the  low  sun  was 
full  of  rich  coloring.  Land,  too,  that  pleasing  repre- 
sentative of  the  world  we  are  cut  off  from,  was  refract- 
ed into  grotesque  knolls  and  long  spires. 

"  The  surface  of  the  floes  shows  more  and  more  the 
thawing  influence  of  our  sun,  now  half  as  high  at  me- 


INFILTRATION    OF    SALT    WATER. 


377 


ridian  as  in  the  torrid  zone  !  Tlie  immediate  surface 
to-day  was  often  entire,  though  we  plunged  almost 
knee-deep  in  water  below  it.  This  you  will  easily  un- 
derstand when  I  tell  you  that  the  thermometer  in  the 
sun  gave,  for  four  successive  hours  to-day,  a  mean  of 
nearly  80°  The  surface  thaw  percolates  through  the 
loosely-compacted  snow,  and,  forming  a  pasty  sub- 
stratum, is  protected  from  re-freezing  by  the  very  snow 
through  which  it  has  descended.  Our  mean  temper- 
ature of  late  has  varied  but  little  between  25°  and 
27°  for  any  twenty-four  hours. 

"  The  infiltration  of  saline  water  through  the  ice  as- 
sists the  process  of  disintegration.  The  water  formed 
by  surface  or  sun  thaw  is,  by  the  peculiar  endosmic 
action  which  I  believe  I  have  mentioned  elsewhere, 
at  once  rendered  salt,  as  was  evident  from  Baume's 
hydrometers  and  the  test  of  the  nitrate  of  silver.  The 
surface  crust  bore  me  readily  this  evening  at  a  tem- 
perature of  21°  and  19°,  giving  no  evidences  of  thaw. 
Beneath,  for  two  inches,  it  was  crisp  and  fresh.  As 
I  tried  it  lower,  cutting  carefully  with  my  bear-knife, 
it  became  spongy  and  brackish ;  at  eight  inches  mark- 
edly so ;  and  at  and  below  twelve,  salt-water  paste. 
On  the  other  hand,  all  my  observations,  and  I  have 
made  a  great  many,  prove  to  me  that  cold,  if  intense 
enough,  will,  by  its  unaided  action,  independent  of 
percolation,  solar  heat,  depending  position,  or  even 
depth  of  ice,  produce  from  salt  water  a  fresh,  pure,  and 
drinkable  element. 

''''May  ^1,  Saturday.  Walked  to-night  to  the  south- 
ward in  search  of  seal :  found  the  ice  in  motion,  and 
had  some  difficulty  in  getting  back.  Wind  from  south- 
ward, and  freshening,  after  a  day  of  nearly  perfect 
calm.    The  drift  is  somewhat  to  the  eastward.    The 


II  i  111 

1|  m 


Pi   II 


n 


^'     i 


\i 


■,.,i 


378 


SUMMARY. 


i^H 


tables  were  heaping  up  actively,  and  the  chewing 
process  of  demolition  was  in  full  energy  among  them. 
I  have  some  hope  that  the  action  may  extend  itself  to 
the  core  of  our  veteran  floe-circle ;  but  for  the  present 
it  is  confined  to  those  peripheral  adjuncts  that  have 
grown  up  around  it  in  more  recent  freezings.  A  bird's- 
eye  view  from  the  mast-head,  corrected  by  my  walks, 
enables  me  to  map  out  its  present  shape  with  consid- 
erable accuracy." 

The  "  month  of  roses"  closed  on  us  without  ad- 
venture ;  but  its  last  ten  days  were  full  of  monitory 
changes.  The  increased  temperature  had  been  visibly 
acting  upon  the  ice,  softening  down  its  rough  angles, 
and  reducing  bowlders  to  mere  knobs  on  the  surface ; 
its  weary  monotony  becoming  every  day  only  more 
disgusting.  From  the  1st  to  the  19th  we  had  drifted 
almost  a  hundred  miles,  and  had  been  expecting  daily 
to  make  the  eastern  shore,  when  land  was  reported 
ahead.  It  proved  to  be  the  Highlands  around  Cape 
Searle,  about  thirty-five  miles  off. 

It  was  the  first  inbreak  upon  our  descjfjte  circle  of 
ice  and  water  that  we  had  experienced  in  ninety-nine 
days.  The  hundredth  gave  us  a  complete  range  of 
dreary,  snow-covered  hills ;  but  to  men  whose  last  rec- 
ollections of  terra  firma  were  connected  with  the  re- 
fracted spectres  that  followed  us  eighty  milep  from 
shore,  just  one  hundred  days  since,  the  solid  certainty 
of  mountain  ridges  was  inexpressibly  grateful.  We 
studied  their  phases,  as  we  drew  nearer  to  them,  with 
an  intentness  which  would  have  been  ludicrous  under 
different  circumstances :  every  cranny,  every  wrinkle 
spoke  to  us  of  movement,  of  a  relation  with  the  shut- 
out world.  Our  drift  which  brought  us  this  blessed 
variety  was  favored  by  an  unusual  prevalence  of  north- 


SUMMARY. 


379 


westerly  winds.  We  made  in  the  thirty-one  days  of 
May  one  hundred  and  ninety  odd  miles  to  the  south- 
ward and  eastward. 

For  the  last  four  days  of  the  month  we  were  at  the 
margin  of  the  Arctic  circle,  alternating  within  and 
without  it.  We  passed  to  the  south  of  it  on  the  30th, 
to  recross  it  on  the  31st  with  an  accidental  drift  to  the 
northward.  We  were  experiencing  at  this  time  the 
rapid  transition  of  seasons  which  characterizes  this  cli- 
mate. The  mean  of  the  preceding  month,  April,  had 
been  +7°  96' ;  that  of  May  was  20°  22'— a  difference 
of  nearly  twelve  degrees.  At  the  same  time,  there  was 
a  chilliness  about  the  weather,  an  uncomfortable  raw- 
ness, both  in  April  and  May,  which  we  had  not  known 
under  the  deep,  perpetual  frosts  of  winter.  Cold  there 
seemed  a  tangible,  palpable  something,  which  we  could 
guard  against  or  control  by  clothing  and  exercise; 
while  warmth,  as  an  opposite  condition,  was  realiza- 
ble and  apparent.  But  here,  in  temperatures  which 
at  some  hours  were  really  oppressing,  60°  to  80°  in 
the  sun,  and  with  a  Polar  altitude  of  45°,  one  half  the 
equatorial  maximum,  we  had  the  anomaly  of  absolute 
discomfort  from  cold.  I  know  that  hygrometric  con- 
ditions and  extreme  daily  fluctuations  of  the  thermom- 
eter explain  much  of  this ;  but  it  was  impossible  for 
me  to  avoid  thinking  at  the  time  that  there  must  also 
be  a  physiological  cause  more  powerful  than  either. 

I  have  alluded  in  my  journal  to  the  return  of  the 
birds.  They  were  most  welcome  visitors.  Crowds  of 
little  snow-birds  (Emhyriza  and  Plectrophanes),  with 
white  breasts  and  jetty  coverts,  were  attracted  by  the 
garbage  which  the  thaw  had  reproduced  around  us, 
and  twittered  from  pile  to  pile,  chirping  sweet  music 
over  their  unexpected  store-house.     Some  of  the  larger 


•  '■       'I 

HJ  ijil 

■•i 

!  til 

11- 

t. 


'^  I    if 


■:    ! 


1     ,»  '  ■  %■• 


"Si  J 


380 


SUMMARY. 


birds,  too,  were  with  us,  returning  to  the  mysterious 
North ;  the  anatinse,  represented  by  the  eiders  (Soma- 
teria),  followed  by  two  of  the  uria  genus,  the  grylle 
and  the  alke.  We  recognized  the  latter  as  our  little 
fat  friend  of  last  summer,  and  gave  him  treatment  ac- 
cordingly. I  shot  thirty-three  in  one  day,  which  my 
mess-mates  made  up  to  sixty. 

The  characteristic  disease  of  May  was  the  snow- 
blindness,  severe  and  acute,  leaving  with  some  of  us  a 
disturbed,  uncertain  state  of  vision  far  from  pleasing. 
The  remedy  most  effective  was  darkness.  A  disk  of 
hard  wood,  with  a  simple  slit,  admitting  a  narrow  pen- 
cil of  light,  we  found  a  better  protection  than  the  gog- 
gle or  colored  lens ;  the  increased  sensibility  of  the  ret- 
ina seeming  to  require  a  diminution  of  the  quantity 
rather  than  a  modification  of  the  character  of  the  ray. 
The  slightest  automatic  movement  varied,  of  course, 
the  sentient  surface  affected  by  the  impression. 


'•'X. 


HUMMOCK  FOnMKO  MARCH  ia,  1651. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 


As  we  neared  the  narrow  Straits  of  Davis,  our  ex- 
pectations of  disruption  and  liberation  underwent  many 
changes.  All  our  reasonings  seemed  to  be  negatived 
by  the  results.  We  were  the  illustration  of  powerless 
ignorance  ;  what  we  hoped  for  one  day,  we  congratu- 
lated ourselves  that  we  had  escaped  the  next.  We 
were  rotating  on  the  disk  of  a  great  wheel,  with  a  rag- 
ged and  constantly  changing  periphery.  Our  position 
on  this  was  eccentric,  and  our  rate  of  motion  variable, 
as  the  obstruftions  which  our  ice-field  encountered 
made  it  revolv*»  on  one  or  another  axis.  We  felt  that 
our  prison  could  not  retain  its  integrity  much  longer 
against  the  diversified  agencies  that  were  assailing  it : 
beyond  this  we  scarcely  framed  a  conjecture. 

It  was  evident  that  other  changes  more  constant, 
and  probably  more  effective  than  those  of  disruption, 
were  taking  place  in  the  great  plain  around  us.  The 
snowy  crust  began  to  yield  under  our  feet,  and  the 


M* 

•  ^5 

'f 

•' 

•• 

.  (^ 

,1 

'li 

1^  1 

1 

I   Jill 
i 


Si 

!;"     : 


A' 


4 


I  k. 


,   'f 


r   u 


.>  '-if I 


382 


REVIEW. 


hummock  ridges,  which  had  so  long  hristled  in  every 
direction,  were  losing  their  sharpness  or  bending  before 
the  sunshine.  We  had  seen  this  great  field  grow  up 
from  the  bosom  of  the  ocean ;  and,  traveling  back  in 
memory,  it  seemed  but  a  few  days  since  our  sails 
swelled  useless  against  the  mast,  as  this  ominous  and 
unyielding  barrier  closed  us  in. 

What  better  type  can  we  have  of  the  universal  prin- 
ciple of  change  than  this  solid  immensity  of  varied  ice, 
only  three  months  ago  a  quiet  liquid  sea,  and  now 
resolving  itself,  under  the  resistless  action  of  natural 
causes,  into  its  normal  element!  The  destructive  and 
conservative  energies,  those  great  powers  of  displace- 
ment and  renewal  which  sustain  the  equilibrium  of 
the  globe,  may  be  seen,  in  an  humble  yet  impressive 
scale,  in  the  formation,  growth,  increase,  degradation, 
and  departure  of  this  icy  terra  firma.  The  geological 
analogies  exhibited  by  the  changes  in  the  configura- 
tion of  this  pack — changes  involving  the  noblest  dy- 
namic forces,  as  well  as  those  slower  actions  now  oper- 
ating upon  the  crust  of  our  earth — would  form  a  vol- 
ume for  the  comprehensive  record  of  Von  Buch  or  Mur- 
chison. 

Instead  of  sea  and  land,  the  two  great  reciprocat- 
ing agents  and  subjects  of  geological  change,  if  for 
a  moment  you  read  sea  and  ice,  hosts  of  analogies 
come  crowding  upon  you,  which,  even  to  an  unedu- 
cated observer  like  myself,  assimilate  the  theoretical 
genesis  of  the  one  to  the  practical  eye-seen  growth  ol' 
the  other.  The  conversion  of  sea  into  ice,  and  of  ice 
to  sea,  the  excavation  of  valleys,  the  degradation  of 
hills,  the  transfer  of  material  to  other  unkindred  sur- 
faces, the  transition  from  dry  ice-fields  to  marshes  im- 
pregnated with  salt,  the  anomalous  influences  of  cur- 


TORMING    ICE. 


383 


rents  and  winds,  and  the  final  depravation  of  crystal- 
line structure,  are  marshaled  with  forces  of  upheaval 
and  depression,  the  synclinal  and  anticlinal  axes  which 
characterize  the  splendid  dynamics  of  ice  in  motion. 

I  intended,  when  I  began  to  arrange  this  narra- 
tive, to  offer  my  ice-notes  as  a  contribution  to  the 
Smithsonian  publications.  But  a  new  duty  is  before 
me  in  the  same  field ;  and  it  may  perhaps  be  as  well 
that  I  should  hold  them  back,  till  the  experience  of  a 
northern  winter  or  two  shall  have  enabled  me  to  cest 
the  conclusions  which  they  point  to.  For  the  present 
I  content  myself  with  a  mere  resume.  My  immedi- 
ate subject  is  the  growth  of  the  pack. 

On  the  twelfth  of  September,  while  attempting 
with  a  free  top-gallant  breeze  to  make  our  way  to  the 
east,  the  thermometer  indicating  a  mean  daily  tem- 
perature of  +14°  or  18°  below  the  freezing  point,  the 
sea  was  observed  to  gradually  thicken  around  us.  A 
pasty  sludge,  formed  of  crystals  broken  up  by  the  ac- 
tion of  the  waves,  began  to  resolve  itself  into  those 
polyhedral  plates  described  by  Scoresby  under  the 
name  of  pancake  ice. 


SLUDGE. 


PANCAKE. 


As  the  wind  increased,  these  were  rolled  into  act- 
ual spheroids;  their  forces  being  regulated  by  the 
laws  which  control  equally  compressed  spheres,  giv- 


!  %  If 


f  1 


I 

I  s. 


'i  !*; 


•  I-  !". 


'    1\ 


I 


384 


REVIEW. 


ing  rise  to  a  rudely  pentagonal  arrangement  not  un- 
like a  tesselated  pavement.     To  such  an  extent  had 


this  increased  by  the  night  of  the  13th,  that  we  lost 
all  power  of  progress. 

When  morning  opened  around  us,  we  found  our- 
selves in  the  midst  of  a  great  area  of  five-sided  tiles, 
marked  at  their  lines  of  junction  by  a  slightly  uplift- 


ed ridge :  this  would  already  bear  a  man.  From  this 
moment  until  the  date  of  our  escape,  nine  months 
after,  our  sails  were  without  use ;  and  our  move- 
ments, as  well  as  our  destinies,  w^ere  regulated  by 
our  ice-jailer.  By  the  20th  of  October,  the  floe  im- 
mediately about  us  was  twenty  inches  thick ;  and  it 
had  so  interlocked  itself  with  other  ice-fields  of  differ- 
ent diameters,  that  to  the  eye  it  became  a  part  of  a 
great  plain,  terminated  only  by  the  headlands  of  the 
shores,  and  a  narrow  water-channel  which  separated 
us  from  them. 


HUMMOCKING. 


385 


As  long  as  we  continued  in  ''Vellington  Channel, 
our  ice  had  not  acquired  its  full  firmness  and  tenac- 
ity:  its  structure  was  granular  and  almost  spongy, 
its  mass  infiltrated  with  salt  water,  and  its  plasticity 
such  that  it  crumbled  and  moulded  itself  to  our  form 
under  pressures  which  would  otherwise  have  destroy, 
ed  us. 

By  the  time  we  had  reached  the  middle  of  Barrow's 
Straits,  and  the  winter's  midnight  of  December  had 
darkened  around  us,  our  thermometers  indicating  a 
mean  of  15°  and  20°  below  zero,  the  ice  attained  a 
thickness  of  three  feet,  with  an  almost  flinty  hard- 
ness, and  a  splintery  fracture  at  right  angles  to  its 
horizontal  plane.  Such  ice  was  at  its  surface  com- 
pletely fresh,  and,  when  tested  with  nitrate  of  silver, 
gave  not  the  slightest  discoloration. 

It  was  here,  while  drifting  at  a  mean  rate  of  twelve 
miles  a  day,  through  a  channel  compressed  by  the 
salient  projection  of  the  shore,  that  the  most  fearful 
of  our  ice-disruptions  occurred.  They  seemed  to  com- 
bine the  horrors  of  tempest,  explosion,  and  earth- 
quake. Our  floe  was  severed  to  its  centre.  Dark 
rivers,  exhaling  that  curious  meteor,  the  frost-smoke, 
reticulated  the  entire  surface ;  and  our  vessel,  thrown 
alternately  upon  her  beams,  or  plunged  bows  down 
into  the  ice,  impressed  us  with  a  sense  of  immediate 
destruction. 

This  convulsion  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  witness- 
ing, upon  a  scale  which  perhaps  exceeded  that  of  any 
previous  experience,  the  operation  called  hummocking. 
Imagine  the  flat,  snow-covered  floe  surface,  caught 
between  two  forces  of  great  intensity,  or  two  moving 
bodies  several  feet  in  thickness  and  miles  in  diame- 
ter, meeting  at  their  marginal  lines.     The  pure  white 

Bb 


'I    ■'», 


^m 


386 


REVIEW. 


'|||t:|!| 


surface  of  the  snow  remains  unchanged.  Presently, 
within  some  particular  zone,  determined  by  causes 
not  to  be  entered  into  here,  you  see  a  slight  crimping, 
followed  by  a  dotted  or  Petersham-cloth  appearance 
on  the  ice.  This  is  followed  again  very  rapidly  by  a 
multitude  of  transverse  ridges  or  waves ;  and  now  for 
the  first  time  you  become  conscious  of  a  sharp,  hum- 
ming, grinding  murmur. 

Cast  your  eyes  now  over  the  level  floe — level  of  a 
minute  ago — and  you  will  see  that  on  each  side  of 
you  there  is  a  descent,  and  that  the  descending  sur- 
face is  curved.  The  snow  is  in  motion,  and  small 
fissures  fly  over  it  in  every  direction,  but  principally 
parallel  to  the  lines  of  pressure.  The  noises  now  be- 
come mingled  with  reports,  not  loud,  but  prolonged, 
like  breaking  the  crust  of  a  giant  loaf  of  bread.  Sud- 
denly the  lines  of  snow-fissures  open  into  wedge-like 
chasms.  Now  run  for  it,  without  stopping  to  ques- 
tion; you  have  been  standing  all  this  time  in  the 
very  centre  of  a  forming  hummock. 


As  you  run,  loud  explosions,  accompanied  by  a 
whirring  as  of  spinning-jennies,  and  a  whining  as  of 
young  puppies,  bring  you  up ;  and  turning,  you  see 


HUMMOCKING. 


387 


the  floe  slowly  part  in  the  middle.  The  lines  of  pre- 
viously marked  fissures  rise  up  into  gigantic  tables. 
Tables  of  one  side  oppose  those  of  the  other,  and  the 
margins  of  the  floes  from  which  they  have  arisen  are 
pressing  on  with  renewed  energies  to  fill  up  the  par- 
tial vacancy.  Tables  become  more  and  more  perpen- 
dicular; the  edges  beneath  meet  again,  grind,  fight, 


rear  themselves  into  fresh  tables,  thrusting  over  those 
first  formed.  New  cracks  rend  the  level  ice.  New 
curves  fall  into  tabular  masses;  and  thus  in  a  few 
minutes  the  tranquil  surface  of  frozen  snow  is  cover- 
ed by  fragmentary  barriers,  grander  and  more  massive 
than  the  Pharaonic  rubbish  of  the  Ramesium. 

Differences  of  resistance  along  the  margin  of  the 
floes,  owing  to  irregularities  in  their  lines  of  junction, 
give,  of  course,  every  irregularity  conceivable  to  this 
action;*  and  it  is  only  after  it  has  continued  suffi- 
ciently long  to  break  all  protruding  edges,  that  the 
axis  of  the  hummock  approximates  to  a  right  line. 
My  sections  exhibit  great  diversity  in  this ;  but  we 
learned,  by  the  direction  of  the  forces  and  the  charac- 

*  The  thickness  of  the  icp,  which  the  wood-cut  on  the  folio  .ving  page  is  in- 
tended to  represent,  was  hctween  eight  and  nine  feet.  The  height  of  one  ob- 
liquely-fractured table  was  sixteen  feet.  The  whole  mass  was  thrown  up  from 
a  previously  solid  floe  in  less  than  fifteen  minutes.  It  was  one  of  those  on 
which  Brooks  and  I  practiced  balancing  during  the  commotion  of  the  23d  of 
March. 


!':■     i 


'•»i| 


w 


li 


'**i 


mn' 


■M 


ti 


It ']'"{ 


mm 


388 


ter  of  our  floes,  to  determine  pretty  accurately  before- 
hand the  type  of  the  approaching  hummock. 

Sometimes  a  hummock  is  as  complete  a  jumble  of 
confused  tables  as  if  Titans  had  been  emptying  rub- 
bish carts  of  marble  upon  the  floes.  Sometimes  they 
are  so  crumbled  by  the  excessive  action,  that  they  look 
like  crushed  sugar ;  and,  again,  I  have  seen  neatly- 
squared  blocks  piled  regularly  one  above  the  other  in 
a  Cyclopean  wall. 


These  pressures  sometimes  develop  grotesque  and 
singular  forms.  One  of  the  most  simple,  an  arch  of 
ice  four  feet  in  thickness,  bridging  a  fissure,  is  pictured 
literally  in  a  former  chapter.  My  friend,  Mr.  Mur- 
daugh,  pointed  out  to  me  two  narrow  tables  forming 


''tt«I/^i 


ATMOSPHERIC    DEPOSITS. 


389 


the  gable-end  and  the  roof  of  a  house.     I  am  sorry  1 
have  lost  the  sketch  I  made  of  them. 

Once,  well  on  in  November,  while  walking  toward 
Barlow's  Inlet  with  old  Blinn,  we  came  to  a  cross 
perched  on  a  rounded  dune,  and  sonorous  when  struck ; 
and  I  remember,  long  after  day  had  returned  to  us, 
during  some  of  my  walks  upon  the  floes,  coming  to  a 
little  grave-yard  of  ice-tablets.  They  needed  no  in- 
scription to  record  that  winter  had  been.  The  two 
sketches  that  follow  are  of  one  of  these  monuments  ; 
the  second  drawing  shows  the  action  of  gravity  on  the 
block  after  sone  weeks  of  exposure.  It  was  more  than 
fifty  feet  long. 


It  will  readily  be  seen  that  these  actions,  renew- 
ed at  intervals  throughout  many  months,  would  es- 
sentially change  the  topography  of  our  ice-country. 
In  fact,  although  I  have  compared  the  primary  and 
elemental  forms  of  each  floe  to  parts  of  a  tesselated 
pavement,  our  great  ice-field  was  one  vast,  broken, 
and  confused  mosaic- work,  composed  of  ice-fields  of 
different  ages  and  thicknesses,  and  marked  at  their 
lines  of  junction  by  uplifted  ridges  of  equally- varying 
dimensions. 

Except  that  atmospheric  deposit  or  hoar-frost,  which 
seems  in  these  Arctic  regions  to  take  the  place  of  a 
more  direct  precipitation,  we  had  no  snow  until  late 
in  November.     Then   we   had  those   fine,  dust-like 


M     ll 


4't 


-\.ti^^ 


mm 


^H 

jm^'B 

I 

PI 

1 

1^ 

i 

mil 

fO^^I^B  ^af 

Kfi 

9 

^ 

bi 

t**^^ 


'■:M\ 


"If  Si 


390 


REVIEW. 


snows,  which,  at  low  temperatures  and  in  times  of  high 
wind,  were  hardly  distinguishable  from  the  driftings 
of  former  snow-fields.  It  was  not  until  our  closing 
month,  with  one  exception,  that  the  snow  fell  in  the 
familiar  flakes  of  home.  All  these  tended  to  modify 
the  aspect  of  our  surface,  rounding  off"  edges,  and  fill- 
ing up  interstitial  cavities ;  while  those  frozen  vesicles, 
with  modifications  of  the  hexagon  form,  which  I  have 
alluded  to  as  accompanying  our  parheliac  and  coronal 
phenomena,  also  contributed  their  share. 

Thus,  then,  we  continued  drifting  toward  the  south, 
sharing  the  movements  of  the  icy  system  of  which  we 
were  the  centre,  and  only  conscious  of  motion  by  the 
observation  of  that  greater  system  which  shone  out 
above  us.  With  March  came  a  renewal  of  the  ice- 
openings,  and  animal  life,  so  long  suspended,  came 
back  to  us.  The  first  bird  seen  was  a  diver  ( C.  Sep- 
tentrionalis),  still  in  his  winter  plumage.  On  the  same 
day  we  saw  several  sccil.  As  the  openings  increased 
to  rivers,  and  began  to  permeate  the  great  pack  more 
thoroughly,  the  narwhal  and  beluga,  and,  in  two  in- 
stances, the  mysticetus,  or  right  whale  of  the  whalers, 
began  to  resort  to  them.  The  Laridae,  represented 
by  the  ivory,  kittiwake,  and  the  Burgomaster  gulls, 
screamed  over  the  floes.  Our  old  friends,  the  molle- 
mokes,  fed  once  more  upon  the  garbage  around  the 
vessels.  The  predatory  jager  (Lestris  parasitica)  soon 
joined  them.  Bears  stalked  about  in  numbers,  accom- 
panied by  their  satellites,  the  white  foxes. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  first  renewal  of  migratory  life, 
as  seen  in  that  familiar  little  fringillide,  the  snow- 
bird. In  company  with  the  Plectrophanes,  they  crowd- 
ed around  our  ships  at  a  very  early  day ;  but  it  was 
only  in  the  second  week  of  May  that  the  great  Arc- 


INFILTRATION    OF    SALT. 


391 


tic  migration  really  began.  The  air  was  checkered 
now  with  moving  columns  of  birds :  the  families  Uria 
and  Somateria,  the  auks  and  the  eiders,  flew  over  us 
in  continuous  crowds. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  floe,  which  had  so  long 
been  our  homestead,  began  to  show  symptoms  of  de- 
cay. The  mean  thickness  of  our  pack — the  mean  of 
many  measurements — might  be  regarded  as  eight  feet ; 
although  the  ice-tables  were  in  some  cases  so  thrust 
one  under  the  other,  as  to  increase  it  to  twenty  and 
even  thirty  feet.  Our  great  pack  probably  extended 
in  a  contiguous  line  from  Lancaster  Sound  to  Cape 
Walsingham,  with  a  breadth  of  not  less  than  two  hund- 
red miles. 

It  was  interesting  to  observe  the  compensations  by 
which  Nature  got  rid  of  this  vast  accumulation.  The 
simple  effects  of  solar  heat,  whether  from  the  atmos- 
phere above  or  the  heated  currents  below,  do  not  sat- 
isfactorily explain  the  dissolution  of  this  ice.  Changes 
in  its  mechanical  structure  evidently  took  place,  pre- 
paring the  way  for  the  subsequent  actions  of  thaw. 
My  attention  was  first  called  to  this  fact  by  hearing, 
through  my  friend,  Lieutenant  Brown,  that  the  observ- 
atory of  Sir  James  Ross  at  Leopold  Island  was  moist 
and  saggy,  while  the  outside  ice  remained  dry  and 
firm.  In  the  month  of  May,  while  our  mean  temper- 
ature was  still  below  the  freezing  point,  I  noticed,  dur- 
ing my  walks  over  the  ice,  that  certain  surface-floes, 
which  had  been  during  the  winter  hard  and  fresh, 
began  to  yield  under  me  as  I  walked,  and  gave  a 
decidedly  brackish  taste  to  the  palate.  The  ice,  too, 
in  many  cases  lost  its  tenacity  and  resistance.  Our 
coal,  which  had  been  thrown  out  loosely  on  it,  so  de- 
pressed the  little  area  around  it,  as  to  be  surrounded 


ii'i 


:iiil 


Hi 

Ik 


'^     f 


li    ^^ 


392 


REVIEW. 


PI-.., 


l^h;. 


i!| 

niii*  i<R-  •' 

1^ 

U^ 

1 

Hi' 

Kli^^Ww ' 

Hb£« 

1 

by  water;  and  some  of  the  larger  hummocks,  whose 
colossal  blocks  had  attracted  my  attention  during  the 
winter,  were  now  wet  and  marshy  to  approach.  Upon 
excavating  blocks  of  ice  with  the  saw  and  pickaxe,  it 
was  found,  in  many  cases,  to  have  lost  its  well-con- 
densed character.  It  was  divided  by  vertical  lines 
into  prisms,  which  stood  prominently  out,  and  ran 
continuously  from  the  watery  to  the  atmospheric  sur- 
face, with  an  arrangement  almost  basaltic* 

Struck  by  this  circumstance,  I  was  led  to  test  the 
ice  of  different  localities  by  both  the  Marcet's  bottle 
and  the  nitrate  of  silver,  and  discovered  that  the  floes, 
which  had  formed  in  midwinter  at  temperatures  be- 
low —30,  were  still  fresh  and  pure,  while  the  floes  of 
slower  growth,  or  of  the  early  and  late  portions  of  the 
season,  were  distinctly  saline.  Indeed,  ice  which  only 
two  months  before  I  had  eaten  with  pleasure,  was  now 
so  salt  that  the  very  snow  which  covered  it  was  no 
longer  drinkable. 

This  is  a  subject  well  worthy  of  future  examina- 
tion. The  dissolution  of  the  great  ice-fields  of  the 
Polar  regions  bears  upon  physical  questions  of  the 
highest  importance;  and  it  really  seems  to  me  that 
changes,  independent  of  expansion  and  contraction, 
must  take  place  in  the  molecular  condition  of  the  ice 
at  temperatures  greatly  below  the  freezing  point. 

Another  element  in  the  disintegration  of  the  floes, 
of  which  this  was  but  a  preliminary  process,  struck 
me  forcibly  a  little  later  in  the  season.  The  invasion 
of  the  capillary  structure  of  the  ice  by  salt  water  from 
below  would  act,  both  chemically  and  mechanically, 
in  destroying  its  structure ;  but  I  am  led  to  believe 

*  I  am  happy  to  find  since  my  return,  that  this  basaltic  arrangement  of  the 
ice  has  been  noticed  also  by  Sir  John  Richardson. 


VARIED  STRUCTURE  OF  FLOES. 


393 


that,  in  addition  to  the  actions  of  simple  infiltration, 
forces  allied  to  endosmosis  are  called  into  play.  I 
observed,  during  the  month  of  May  and  in  the  last 
of  April,  that  the  surface  snows,  heated  by  the  sun, 
formed  pools  in  the  most  dependent  portions  of  our 
ice.  Where  this  occurred  in  ices  formed  either  early 
or  late  in  the  season,  and  which  presented,  therefore, 
the  prismatic  arrangement  I  have  described,  the  work 
of  destruction  went  on  with  wonderful  rapidity.  Al- 
though our  mean  temperature  was  greatly  below  the 
freezing  point,  and  these  little  pools  were  themselves 
coated  nightly  with  a  pellicle  of  ice,  a  very  few  days 
would  render  them  unsafe.  A  boat-hook  could  be 
thrust  nearly  through  them,  and  they  were  even  dan- 
gerous for  pedestrians.  We  had  thus  all  the  indica- 
tions, except  that  of  a  membraneous  interspace,  which 
might  invite  endosmotic  action ;  fluids  of  difierent  dens- 
ities above  and  below,  and  an  intermediate  structure 
abounding  in  capillary  ducts. 

The  presenting  face  of  the  hummocks,  approaching 
more  or  less  nearly  to  the  vertical,  opposes  them  to  the 
direct  instead  of  the  oblique  rays  of  the  sun ;  and  their 
sides  begin  to  thaw  in  consequence,  while  the  more 
horizontal  floes  remain  unchanged :  and  as  these  hum- 
mock ridges  represent  the  lines  of  previous  cementa- 
tion, they  are  soon  prepared  to  become  those  of  first 
separation.  Floes  break  up  most  readily  along  such 
lines  of  old  cementation. 

Before  passing  from  these  causes  of  disintegration 
and  destruction  in  the  pack,  I  would  refer  again  to  the 
fact  which  I  have  mentioned  already  of  its  being  a 
great  mosaic  work,  composed  of  tables  of  various  thick- 
nesses, and,  of  course,  of  varying  resistance.  Such 
ice,  therefore,  when  subjected  to  mechanical  pressure, 


I 


I 


^>    ii' 


'■■'    )'. 


H 


■■'If 


m 


394 


AEVIEW. 


whether  by  the  action  of  currents  and  winds,  or  of  pro- 
truding headlands,  must  present  throughout  its  entire 
area  a  varying  momentum  and  resistance.  This,  in 
connection  with  the  fact  of  the  hummock  ridges  or 
lines  of  junction  being  the  soonest  to  give  way,  will 
explain  the  facility  with  which  this  great  pack  yields 
to  assailing  forces  from  without. 

I  believe  I  have  adverted  already  to  another  most 
interesting  and  beautiful  provision  of  nature  to  prevent 
the  reconsolidation  of  the  ice  after  it  has  been  once 
broken  up  during  the  seasons  of  thaw.  Fragmentary 
masses,  which  were  fast  cemented  during  the  winter 
to  the  under  surface  of  the  floe,  now  rise  through  the 
water,  interposing  themselves  between  the  opening 
tables,  and  acting  as  checks  or  wedges  to  prevent  their 
reapposition  and  cementation. 

By  such  impressive  compensations  does  nature  ef- 
feet  the  equilibrium  of  the  year.  In  a  short  and  irreg- 
ularly-graduated season,  this  great  ice-raft,  the  growth 
of  nine  months  of  congelation,  is  returned  to  water  by 
means  almost  independent  of  thaw,  and  resumes  its 
office  of  tempering  the  climates  of  the  distant  south. 
As  the  views  I  have  detailed  in  this  chapter  of  the 
causes  which  effect  the  final  disintegration  of  the  pack 
may  perhaps  be  novel,  I  venture  to  recite  them  in  the 
form  of  a  summary. 

First.  Changes  in  the  molecular  condition  of  the 
ice  at  temperatures  below  the  freezing  point,  giving 
rise  to  infiltration  of  salt  water  and  rapid  decomposi- 
tion  of  the  ice  in  consequence. 

Second.  A  greater  intensity  of  this  action,  owing 
to  the  infraposition  and  superposition  of  two  fluids  of 
diflering  densities,  inducing  a  rapid  circulation  allied 
to  endosmosis. 


SUMMARY. 


395 


Third.  The  facile  disruption  induced  by  transmit- 
ted  forces  throughout  a  plain  of  varying  diameter  and 
resistance. 

Fourth.  The  softening  down  of  hummock  ridges, 
the  lines  of  previous  junction. 

Fifth.  The  interposition  of  floating  fragments  or 
calves,  preventing  their  reconsolidation. 


ERODED  BEno. 


f   : 


' 


'111! 


•i 


11! 

1.  « 


1 1\ 


\  k 


i 


J 


TOPOGRAPHY  OF  THE  FLOE,  MAY  31. 

A.  Advance.  B  B.  Shorter  diameter,  3.J  miles. 

R.  Rescue.  C  C.  Longer  diameter,  SJ  miles. 

Distance  between  ttio  vessels,  500  yards. 


CHAPTER  XLIII. 

"June  1.  June  opens  on  us  warm.  Our  mean  tem- 
perature to-day  has  been  above  the  freezing  point,  34° ; 
our  lowest  only  29°  ;  and  at  11  this  morning  it  rose 
to  40°.  The  snow-birds  increase  in  numbers  and  in 
confidence.  It  is  delightful  to  hear  their  sweet  jar- 
gon. They  alight  on  the  decks,  and  come  unhesitat- 
ingly to  our  very  feet.  These  dear  little  Fringillides 
have  evidently  never  visited  Christian  lands. 

"June  3.  The  day  misty  and  obscure:  no  land  in 
sight  from  aloft ;  and  no  change  apparent  in  the  floe. 
But  we  notice  a  distinct  undulation  in  the  ice  trench- 
es alongside,  caused  probably  by  some  propagated 
swell. 

"  I  walked  out  at  night  between  9  and  11  o'clock  in 


THE    BREAK-UP. 


397 


search  of  open  water.  We  had  the  full  light  of  day, 
but  without  its  oppressive  glare.  The  thawed  condi- 
tion of  the  marginal  ice  made  the  walk  difficult,  and 
forced  us  at  last  to  give  it  up.  But,  climbing  to  the 
top  of  a  hummock,  we  could  see  the  bay  rolling  its  al- 
most summer  waves  close  under  our  view.  It  was  a 
grand  sight,  but  more  saddening  than  grand.  It  seems 
like  our  cup  of  Tantalus ;  we  are  never  to  reach  it. 
And  while  we  are  floating  close  upon  it,  the  season 
is  advancing;  and  if  we  are  ever  to  aid  our  broth- 
ers in  the  search,  we  should  even  now  be  hurrying 
baf*-k. 

''''June  4.  Yesterday  over  again.  But  the  water  is 
coming  nearer  us.  As  we  stand  on  deck,  we  can  see 
the  black  and  open  channel- way  on  every  side  of  us, 
except  off  our  port  quarter :  it  is  useless  to  talk  of 
points  of  the  compass ;  our  floe  rotates  so  constantly 
from  right  to  left,  as  to  make  them  useless  in  de- 
scription. To  port,  the  extent  of  ice  baffles  the  eye, 
even  from  aloft;  it  must,  however,  be  a  mere  isth- 
mus. 

'■^June  5,  Thursday.  We  notice  again  this  morn- 
ing the  movement  in  the  trench  alongside.  The  float- 
ing scum  of  rubbish  advances  and  recedes  with  a  reg- 
ularity that  can  only  be  due  to  some  equable  undula- 
tion from  without  to  the  north.  We  continue  perch- 
ed up,  just  as  we  were  after  our  great  lift  of  last  De- 
cember. A  more  careful  measurement  than  we  had 
made  before,  gave  us  yesterday,  between  our  height 
aft  and  depression  forward,  a  difference  of  level  of  6 
feet  4  inches.  This  inclination  tells  in  a  length  of 
83  feet — about  one  in  thirteen. 

"  P.M.  The  BREAK-UP  AT  LAST !  A  little  after  five 
this  afternoon,  Mr.  Griffin  left  us  for  the  Rescue,  after 


,    4 


1 


-  i 


L     ^r 


398 


THE    RESCUE    FREE. 


making  a  short  visit.  He  had  hardly  gone  hefore  I 
heard  a  hail  and  its  answer,  hoth  of  them  in  a  tone  of 
more  excitement  than  we  had  been  used  to  for  some 
time  past ;  and  the  next  moment,  the  cry,  *  Ice  crack- 
ing ahead !' 

"  Murdaugh  and  myself  reached  the  deck  just  in 
time  to  see  De  Haven  crossing  our  gangway.  We  fol- 
lowed. Imagine  our  feelings  when,  midway  between 
the  two  vessels,  we  saw  Griffin  with  the  ice  separat- 
ing before  him,  and  at  the  same  instant  found  a  crack 
tracing  its  way  between  us,  and  the  water  spinning 
up  to  the  surface.  *  Stick  by  the  floe.  Good-by ! 
What  news  for  home?'  said  he.  One  jump  across 
the  chasm,  a  hearty  God  -  bless  -  you  shake  of  the 
hand,  a  long  jump  back,  and  a  little  river  divided  our 
party. 

"  Griffin  made  his  way  along  one  fissure  and  over 
another.  We  followed  a  lead  that  was  open  to  our 
starboard  beam,  each  man  for  himself.  In  half  a 
minute  or  less  came  the  outcry,  '  She's  breaking  out : 
all  hands  aboard !'  and  within  ten  minutes  from  Grif- 
fin's first  hail,  while  we  were  yet  scrambling  into  our 
little  Ark  of  Refuge,  the  whole  area  about  us  Was  di- 
vided by  irregular  chasms  in  every  direction. 

"  All  this  was  at  half  past  five.  At  six  I  took  a 
bird's-eye  sketch  from  aloft.  Many  of  the  fissures  were 
already  some  twenty  paces  across.  Conflicting  forces 
were  at  work  every  where  ;  one  round-house  moving 
here,  another  in  an  opposite  direction,  the  two  vessels 
parting  company.  Since  the  night  of  our  Lancaster 
Sound  commotion,  months  ago,  the  Rescue  had  not 
changed  her  bearing :  she  was  already  on  our  port- 
beam.     Every  thing  was  change. 

"Our  brig,  however,  had  not  yet  found  an  even  keel. 


399 


bird's-eye  view  of  floe,  JUNE  5. 

A.  Advance.  D.  Floe  adhering  to  tlie  Advance. 

R.  Rescue.  C.  Path  between  brigs  before  break-up. 

11 II.  Hummocks. 

The  enormous  masses  of  ice,  thrust  under  her  st  n  hy 
the  action  of  repeated  pressures,  had  ghied  themt  jlves 
together  so  completely,  that  we  remained  cradled  in  a 
mass  of  ice  exceeding  twenty-five  feet  in  solid  depth. 
Many  cf  these  tables  were  liberated  by  the  swell,  and 
rose  majv^stically  from  their  recesses,  striking  the  ship, 
and  then  escaping  above  the  surface  for  a  moment, 
with  a  sudden  vault. 

"  To  add  to  the  novelty  of  our  situation,  two  cracks 
coming  together  obliquely,  met  a  few  yards  astern  of 
us,  cleaving  through  the  heavy  ice,  and  leaving  us  at- 


i  " 


1 


Ml! 


i 


i 


i     ■'! 


I 


;  i 


M 


400 


ROLLING    ICE. 


tached  to  a  triangular  fragment  of  14  by  22  paces. 
This  berg-like  fragment,  reduced  as  it  was,  continued 
its  close  adhesion.  Its  buoyancy  was  so  great,  that  it 
acted  like  a  camel,  retaining  the  brig's  stern  high  in 
the  air,  her  bows  thrown  down  toward  the  water.  We 
are  so  at  this  moment,  10  P.M." 

All  hands  were  in  the  mean  time  actively  at  work. 
The  floe  had  been  to  us  terra  firma  so  long  that  we 
had  applied  it  to  all  the  purposes  of  land.  Clothes 
and  clothes'  lines,  sledges,  preserved  meats,  kindling 
wood  and  planking,  were  now  all  bundled  on  board. 
The  artificial  horizon,  which  had  stood  for  eight 
months  upon  a  little  ice-pedestal,  was  barely  saved ; 
and  I  had  to  work  hard  to  get  one  of  my  few  remain- 
ing thermometers  from  a  neighboring  hummock. 

The  cause  of  this  sudden  disruption — I  mean  the 
immediate  cause,  for  the  summer  influences  had  pre- 
pared the  floe  for  disintegration — was  evidently  the 
sea-swell  setting  from  the  southeast.  This  swell  had 
given  us  minor  manifestations  of  its  existence  as  far 
back  as  the  1st  of  June.  Whether  it  was  increased 
without,  or  our  floe  made  more  accessible  to  it  by  the 
drifting  away  of  other  and  protecting  floes,  I  can  not 
say.  This,  however,  was  clear,  that  the  great  undula- 
tions propagated  by  wave  action  caused  our  disruption. 
The  proof  of  this  I  shall  not  forget. 

Standing  on  our  little  deck,  and  looking  out  on  the 
floe,  we  had  the  strange  spectacle  of  an  undulating  so- 
lidity,  a  propagated  wave  borne  in  swell-like  ridges, 
as  if  our  ice  was  a  carpet  shaken  by  Titans.  I  can 
not  convey  the  effect  of  this  sublime  spectacle.  The 
ice,  broken  into  polyhedric  masses,  gave  ai  a  few  hund- 
red yards  no  indications  to  the  eye  of  the  lines  of  sep- 
aration ;  besides  which,  the  infiltration  of  salt  water 


We 


THE     CALVES. 


401 


had  no  doubt  increased  the  plasticity  of  the  material. 
Imagine,  then,  this  apparently  solid  surface,  by  long 
association  as  unyielding  to  us  as  the  shore,  taking 
suddenly  upon  itself  the  functions  of  fluidity,  another 
condition  of  matter.  It  absolutely  produced  some- 
thing like  the  nausea  of  sea-sickness  to  see  the  swell 
of  the  ice,  rising,  and  falling,  and  bending,  transmit- 
ting with  pliant  facility  the  advancing  wave. 

A  hummock  hill,  about  midway  between  us  and 
the  Rescue,  gave  me  an  opportunity  of  measuring 
rudely  the  height  of  the  swell.  It  rose  till  it  covered 
her  quarter  boat;  sinking  again  till  I  could  see  the 
side  of  the  brig  down  to  her  water-line,  an  interval 
of  five  feet  at  least. 

"  As  we  walk  along  the  edge  of  the  open  fissures, 
we  see  a  wonderful  variety  in  the  thickness  of  the 
ice.  Our  apparently  level  surface  is,  in  fact,  a  mo- 
saic work  of  ices,  frozen  at  separate  periods,  and  tes- 
selated  by  the  several  changes  or  disruptions  which 
we  have  undergone.  Thus  I  can  see  the  tables  un- 
der our  stern  extending  down  at  least  twenty-five 
feet:  adjoining  this  is  ice  of  four  feet:  next  comes  a 
field  of  six  feet;  and  then  hummock  ridges,  with  ta- 
bles choked  below,  so  as  to  give  an  apparent  depth 
of  twenty. 

"  The  '  calves '  also,  of  which  a  great  many  have 
now  risen  to  the  surface,  are  worthy  of  note.  These 
singular  masses  are  evidently  fragments  of  tables,  of 
every  degree  of  thickness,  which  have  bci  forced 
down  by  pressure,  and  afterward,  by  some  change  in 
the  temperature  of  the  water,  or  by  wave  and  tidal 
actions,  have  been  liberated  again  from  the  floe,  and 
find  their  way  upward  wherever  an  opening  permits. 
We  saw  them  honey-combed  and  cellular,  water-sod- 

C  c 


!! 


.,, 


"• 


402 


STATE    OF    THE     ICE. 


f''u  (ft  i 


■>?• 


den  and  in  rounded  bowlders,  rising  from  the  depths 
of  the  sea.  Their  density,  so  near  that  of  the  liquid 
in  which  they  were  submerged,  made  this  rise  slow 
and  impressive.  We  could  see  them  many  fathoms 
below,  voyaging  again  to  the  upper  world.  Once  be- 
tween the  gaping  edges  of  the  lead,  they  effectually 
prevent  the  closing.  They  are  about  us  in  every  di- 
rection, interposed  between  the  fields. 

"The  appendage  which  sustains  our  brig  has  a 
good  deal  of  this  character.  I  will  try  to  make  an 
exact  drawing  of  it  as  a  curiosity,  if  it  hangs  on  to 
us  much  longer.  Its  buoyancy  indicates  great  sub- 
merged mass.  A  strong  cable  and  ice  anchor  have 
been  carried  to  a  floe  on  our  starboard  bow,  and  the 
swell  drives  it  upon  us  like  a  great  battel  ing-ram. 
This  ingenious  method  of  poundinjr  us  out  of  our  te- 
nacious cradle  subjects  us  to  a  regular  succession  of 
Iieavy  shocks,  which  would  startle  a  man  not  used 
to  ice  navigation.  At  the  time  I  write,  11  P.M.,  we 
have  been  nearly  three  hours  subjected  to  this  bang- 
ing without  any  apparent  impression.  To-morrow 
we  will,  if  not  liberated,  apply  the  saw;  and  then 
again  to  the  warps ! 

"11  20  P.M.  In  the  midst  of  fragments,  few  more 
than  a  hundred  yards  in  length,  nearly  all  much 
smaller.  Between  them  are  zigzag  leads  of  open 
water.  Astern  of  us  is  an  expansion  of  some  fifty 
yards  across ;  ahead,  a  winding  creek,  wider  than  our 
brig.     Thus  closes  the  day. 

"One  thing  more:  a  thought  of  gratitude  before  I 
turn  in.  This  journal  shows  that  I  have  been  in 
the  daily  habit  of  taking  long,  solitary  walks  upon 
the  ice,  miles  from  the  ship.  Suppose  this  rupture 
to  have  come  entirely  without  forewarning!    I  had 


3TATE     OF     THE     ICE. 


403 


greased  iny  boots  for  a  walk  a  few  hours  before  the 
change,  and  only  postponed  it  because  I  happened  to 
ffet  absorbed  in  a  book. 


^|||!l:ii:|'1*ll|||||jiijp 


I'.!'' 


Ii|pil!;1r:';i!i  !'::'■'■::,:■::':.' ''■^' 


IIP 


;  TOPOORAPHY  OF  FLOE,  JUNE  5. 


m 
m 


' '  -'f'  ( *  ■  if 


fllOFILE   OF   t'LOE  ;    rOUT   SIDU. 


PBOFILE   OF    FLOE  ;   STARBOAKD. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 

^^June  6.  Our  bumping  continued  all  night,  with- 
out any  apparent  effect  upon  our  sticking-plaster. 
Acting,  as  this  impact  does,  at  the  long  end  of  a  lev- 
er, our  sterii  being  immovably  fixed,  it  must  be  hard 
upon  the  rudder  post,  a  beam  that  is  now  protruding 
from  the  least  strengthened  part  of  our  brig  into  a 
transparent  glue  of  tenacious  ice.  The  twelve-feet 
saw,  suspended  from  a  tripod  of  spars,  is  at  work,  try- 
ing to  cut  a  line  across  the  mass  to  our  keel.  But  for 
this  appendage,  we  would  be  now  warping  through 
the  fissures. 


OUR    DRAG. 


405 


"  7  P.M.  The  position  of  things  continues  un- 
changed. Our  ice-saw  with  great  lahor  buried  its 
length  in  the  floe,  reaching  nearly  to  our  stern ;  but 
the  submerged  material  is  so  thick  that  it  has  little 
or  no  effect.  Wedging,  by  billets  of  wood  between 
her  sides  and  the  mounding  ice,  was  equally  ineffect- 
ual. Gunpowder  would  perhaps  release  us;  but  that 
we  can  not  spare. 

"  I  tried  to  measure  the  depth  of  this  inveterate 
companion  of  ours.  Standing  at  our  port  gangway, 
I  lowered  the  pump-rod  twenty-four  feet  to  a  shelf 
projecting  from  the  mass :  beneath  this,  a  prolonga- 
tion or  tongue  stretched  to  a  depth  which  I  could  not 
determine.  On  the  other  side,  to  starboard,  the  ice 
descends  in  solid  mass  some  twenty  feet.  Adopting 
twenty-four  feet  as  a  mean  depth,  and  ninety  by  fifty 
feet  as  the  mean  of  dimensions  at  the  surface,  the 
solid  contents  of  this  troublesome  winter  relic  would 
be  108,000  cubic  feet.  No  wonder  it  lifts  up  our  little 
craft  bodily.  I  have  made  my  drawings  of  it  with 
all  topographical  accuracy. 

"  The  wind  has  been  hauling  round  from  the  south 
to  the  west,  and  by  afternoon  blew  quite  freshly.  We 
made  all  sail,  even  to  studding-sails,  in  hopes  of  for- 
cing the  cracks  ahead,  and  tearing  ourselves,  as  it 
were,  from  oui  impediment.     Thus  far  all  has  failed. 

"10  P.M.  The  ship  is  covered  with  canvas :  she 
stands  motionless  amid  the  ice,  although  her  wings 
are  spread  and  tense.  The  wind  is  fresh  and  steady 
from  the  northwest.  Our  swell  ceases  with  this  wind, 
and  the  floes  seem  disposed  to  come  together  again ; 
but  the  days  of  winter  have  passed  by,  and  the  inter- 
posing calves  prevent  the  apposition  of  the  edges. 

"  The  effects  of  a  constant  force,  slight  as  it  seems, 


it 
I'h'i 


ii 


'ii 


406 


REMEMBRANCERS. 


m^ 


"I'lr  ;, 


have  been  beautifully  shown  by  our  brig.  Pressing 
as  we  do,  under  full  canvas,  against  heavy  yet  qui- 
escent masses,  we  gradually  force  ahead,  breasting 
aside  the  floes,  and  leaving  behind  us  a  pool  of  open 
water.  Our  rate  is  ten  feet  per  hour!  Remember 
that  the  old  man  of  Sinbad  still  clings  to  us,  and  that 
we  carry  the  burden  in  this  slow  progress.  I  hope 
that  the  Sinbad  comparison  will  end  here ;  for  I  can 
readily,  without  much  imagination,  carry  it  further. 

"12  Midnight.  Still  advancing,  dragging  behind  us 
this  pertinacious  mass.  We  have  butted  several  times 
rudely  against  projecting  floes,  but  it  is  as  unmoved 
as  solid  rock.  Very  foggy:  Rescue  not  visible.  Ther- 
mometer at  29°. 

"  We  recognize,  among  the  floe  fragments  around 
us,  old  play-fellows.  Here  we  played  foot-ball ;  there 
we  skated ;  by  this  hummock  crag  stood  my  thermom- 
eters ;  and  here  I  shot  a  bear.  We  are  passing  slowly 
from  them,  or  they  from  us.  Now  and  then  a  rubbish 
pile  will  show  itself,  cresting  the  pure  ice.  Even  an 
old  Champagne  basket,  full  of  nothing  but  sadly-pleas- 
ant associations,  is  recognized  upon  a  distant  floe. 
This  breaking  up  of  a  curtilage  is  not  without  its  re- 
grets. I  wish  that  our  'old  man'  would  loosen  his 
griping  knees :  three  hours  would  put  us  into  compar- 
atively open  water. 

"June  7,  Saturday.  The  captain  says  that  the  shocks 
of  the  night  of  the  fifth  were  the  hardest  our  brig  has 
experienced  yet. 

"  This  morning  we  made  our  incubus  fast  to  one 
end  of  a  passing  floe,  and  ourselves  fast  to  the  other : 
double  hawsers  were  used,  blocks  and  tackle  rigged, 
and  all  hands  placed  at  our  patent  winch,  the  slack 
being  controlled  by  a  windlass.    We  parted  our  stern 


STATE    OF    THE    ADVANCE. 


407 


hawser,  and  that  was  all.  Our  resort  now  is  to  the 
fourteen-feet  saw.  With  this,  before  the  day  closes, 
we  shall  cut  a  skerf  as  far  as  our  fore-foot,  and  then 
try  the  efficacy  of  wedges. 

"  Toward  evening  the  Rescue  made  sail,  and  forced 
her  way  slowly  through  the  fragments.  By  eight  P.M. 
she  was  snugly  secured  to  the  other  side  of  our  own 
floe.  A  beautiful  sight  it  was  to  see  once  more,  even 
in  this  labyrinth  of  rubbish,  a  moving  sail-spread  ves- 
sel. Once  a  momentary  opening  showed  us  the  dark 
water,  and  beneath  it  the  shadow  of  the  brig. 

"  10  40.  A  crash!  a  low,  grinding  sound,  followed 
by  loud  exclamations  of  'Back,'  'back!'  'Hold  on,' 
'  hold  on !'  I  ran  upon  deck  in  time  to  add  one  cheer 
more  to  three  which  came  from  the  ice.  A  large  frag- 
ment, extending  from  her  saw-crack  along  the  bottom 
on  the  port  side,  had  broken  off,  cutting  the  triangle 
in  half,  and  leaving  the  crew  behind  floating  and  sep- 
arated from  the  ship.  All  that  now  confined  us  was 
the  mass  (a)  which  remained  on  her  starboard  quarter. 
This  descended  some  twenty  or  more  feet,  embracing 
our  keel,  and  by  its  size  sustaining  us  in  our  perched 
condition.  We  had  settled  but  nine  inches  in  conse- 
quence of  our  partial  disengagement. 

"  Looking  from  the  taffrail  down  the  stern-post,  we 
can  now  see  the  position  of  this  portion  of  our  brig 
distinctly.  A  strip  of  her  false  keel  has  been  forced 
from  its  attachments,  drawing  the  heavy  bolts,  and 
tearing  away  some  of  our  sheathing.  How  far  the  in- 
jury extends,  whether  the  entire  length  of  the  brig, 
or  through  some  few  yards,  we  can  not  tell.  It  must 
have  occurred  during  the  great  ice  commotion  of  De- 
cember 7th  and  8th.  The  disruption  of  January  no 
doubt  added  to  the  thickness  of  the  underlying  tables ;. 


'til 


iiii 
i 


St 


■  .  J^;  H*t 


n  %  j 


408 


UNDER    WEIGH. 


wTtm 


caped  wonderfully  ^'evation.     We  have  es- 

«oa^rA2S,  f;rir  T-  ■•  •'    Once  „ore 
ween  twelve  and  ^ne  :> Sk  tt""™*-     ^'  ""^  ''- 
daugh  went  down  upon  ft.,  f         ''  """"'"g-     Mur- 
adhering  to  o„r  ira^fTel'  IT^'^  "^^  ^«" 
his  weight  upon  it,  when  w7f h     ^  ^^"^  '""•''^3^  --^sted 
'y  premonitory  gr„X";TtrT- '*"'"«'''  ^'"^f««- 
barely  time  to  scfaS;!?"'?  '*««"■•    He  had 
nails  in  the  effort,  before  Cfth^'^r"'' *^"""?  ^is 

tumbled  up  to  the  sur  fee',  l!  LT^h  '"^  *»"'"'"'  " 
nto  clear  water.    When  Tr.    if .,   ,''""'"  """^  more 

hardly  realise  the  level  horirnff''  *'!f.  ''^*'  ^  "»"" 

we  have  been  accustomedtoth     ''"'''*'""  "^  *'"§«. 

work  so  long.  *°  *'"^  "P  and  down  hill 

* wSatl!  tntSl'm'lke  lall^"-!^^^^^^^^    from 
renewed  the  old  times  pr^ss  ofK     ^'"'"''^  and 
regularly  among  the  frag^ert'  to  J^""^'  t"'""^  «" 
eastward.     We  received  some  h!  *\^°"*''^ard  and 
under  weigh  until  6  P  M   X^  ^^  ''"'"P^'  '"'*  ^^ept 
tog  caused  us  to  haul  up  C  L" '"  ''"P«»«*™hle  ice- 
are  now  fast  by  three  anchl     w!  ''^  *°  ^W«''  ^e 
ress  at  six  miles.     Tb »  r!!1!;    •       ^'*""ate  our  prog. 

"From  the  heavy  L  to  "h-'l""*^'"'"''"- 

obtained  fresh  M« Jj t^     fhi"'  T.  ^'"'««''  -« 

«mce  the  15th  of  September  ihalth  "  *■'  "'^^  *™« 

hquefied  without  iire    EiX        !,.''''*  '^'""'^  water 

days :  think  of  that  deaf  gLT"*^ ''"''  twenty.four 

family !  '  "*"  strawberry  and  cream  eating 

col'^orihe'"uprefror!&  "''''''  l^  ^^^ntly  - 

PP  r  northern  regions  of  Wellington, 


MAONIFICENT     FLOE. 


40<» 


or  i!"'^  North  Baffin's  Straits.  Tliis  ice,  tfiougli  puro 
and  beautiful,  could  never  have  been  created  in  any- 
single  winter.  It  has  made  me  understand  for  the 
first  time  the  startling  stories  of  Wrangell.  This  floe 
is  now  more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  yards  long  by 
four  hundred  wide ;  a  size  too  large  for  infraposition 
of  tables,  while  its  purity  precludes  the  idea  of  ground 
ice.  It.  depth,  ascertained  from  its  mean  line  of  flo- 
tation, exceeds  forty  feet.  Its  surface  is  level,  and  the 
appearance,  looking  down  into  its  pure  depths,  beau- 
tiful beyond  description.  It  forms  part  of  a  great  field, 
miles  in  circumference,  as  similar  coaptating  fragments 
are  seen  in  every  direction ;  the  great  swell  of  the  5th 
having  no  doubt  destroyed  its  integrity.  From  what 
great  winter  basin  comes  this  colossal  ice  f 


r,! 


AFFKOACHINO    DISCO. 


iit  '\ 

i 

Rill 


■ilrK-* 


1-1:1  2l*' 


i    It  .  iih-^i"  ;     '  'fif       t 


it,:^ 


't 

i 


.•^l^^%f! 


CHAPTER  XLV. 

We  continued  our  progress  through  a  labyrinth  ol' 
ice,  sometimes  running  into  a  berg,  or  grazing  against 
its  edge  so  close  as  to  carry  away  a  spar  or  stave  a 
quarter-boat,  but  still  making  our  way  across  to  the 
Greenland  shore.  The  sea  was  studded  with  low 
bergs  and  water- washed  floes,  wearing  the  fantastic 
forms  which  had  surprised  us  the  year  before.  Some 
were  both  complicated  and  graceful,  supported  gener- 
ally by  peduncular  bases,  which  gave  them  a  curi- 
ous aspect  of  fra- 
j^^r^Ki   i'  gility.    This  was 

evidently  due  to 
the  action  of  the 
waves  at  the  wa- 
ter-line, aided  by 
the  warmth  of  the 
atmosphere.  Some 
of  these  forms  1 
have  already  giv- 
en at  the  foot  of 
chapters;  others  I  group 
in  the  margin. 

If  we  suppose  a  near- 
ly symmetrical  lump  ol 
ice,  floating  with  that 
stable  equilibrium  which 
belongs  to  its  excessive 
submergence,  the  atmosphere,  which  has  now  a  tem- 


'^h,& 


I  i> 


.,>£ 


:i!%^ 


^^^ 


:^* 


I 


u 


t 


i 


It  if 


giv- 


'...«««.-' 


.>ft.. 


'■^ 


■'*^'- 


•W 


i.^\' 


i/ff^ 


m^ 


'i:^ 


vf^ 


t       .!f> 


I 


«A 


rHAi-n-.i!  XI. 


>'^%1 


We  couiinutHl  out  prv^iir*??"<  thrt'.*i::  vif  :-*'tk  e4' 
icf>,  someciiaes  ruiniiii«»'  *i»i>  ?♦.  liorg.  «>i  -^iAtf^ti^  u^  tjtiil 
iis  edge  s<>  cio:^«*  m  Ut  i'arfy  away  a  .*[).tj-  (i*  *:tavt*  a 
q:'arter«lwat,  but  •siill  U'-xking  our  vvjiy  acro.->  to  tbr 
(.irf^eniaud  sliore.  The  sea  wa.s  studded  with  low 
berg.s  and  water- was ht>d  iloos,  weariiiL'"  the  iantastlc 
rorins  wdiH'h  had  <urpiiised  us  the  yeai:  liefore.  8omo 
were  both  conipli cared  and  jiracefui,  siippoi:t.ed  g^eaer- 
:diy  by  peduncuhir  bases.  wlri;'}i   j»ave  theiu  a  ciiri- 

;M<s  aspect  of  iVtir 


TV 


-I 


i 


I  A:, 


m 


*y^'-ft: 


\^'H  C: 


■i,:'.\,iti^.-4'^'^-\ff,^iilvy^    '*.., 


'  ''III 


■'»:-::^:t'-' 


suhiiiert' 


tjie  wu  rinth  oi'  tlir 
a.tinospitere.Some 
of  these    forms  i 
*     have  aheady  giv- 
en at  the  foot  of 
ciutfitr'.r«;  others  I  group 
in  th<'  tnttfffiii. 

If  w<;  suppose  a  uear- 

.,   iy  ji)  ifmietriuai  iuinf)  ol 

ice,   iioatinf^'   with    tha? 

stable  etjiiiiibrmiri  whi-b 

bejon^-s  lu  its  exeesMve 

rfma^fdiert,  whiclj  has  aow  a  leja- 


..i 


m. 


■mm- 


J 

inv- 

•ar- 

fi;!.!. 
II 


o 

> 

00 
m 

o 


CD 

r:      O 

d 

c     o 

—  m 

-  33 


O 


o 

> 


> 

o 
m 
cn 


t  .  -kl 


Mfc 


'«« 


i 

ll 

<  'ii^ 

1 

IP 

p  r 
1 

4-  ■. .  Iff:: 


f'"'-'^.-, 

-^,,;^ 


PREPARATIONS     TO    RETURN. 


411 


perature  as  high  as  64°  in  the  sunshine,  will  gradu- 
ally round  off  and  crease  the  edges,  and  at  the  same 
time  will  melt  the  portions  of  the  mass  which  are 
above  water.  Its  buoyancy  increasing  as  its  weight 
is  reduced,  the  berg  will  now  rise  slowly,  presenting  a 
succession  of  new  surfaces  to  the  abrasion  of  the  waves ; 
and  thus  we  shall  have  the  familiar  mushroom  or  fun- 
goid appearance  which  is  shown  in  many  of  the  plates. 

The  process  continuing  under  all 
the  modifications  of  wave  action, 
while  the  opposing  face  of  the  berg 
varies  with  every  change  of  its 
gravitating  centre,  we  may  have  ec- 
centric resemblances  to  animated 
things  sculptured  in  the  ice,  and  at 
other  times  forms  of  classic  symme- 
try, or  the  frets  and  garniture  of 
iiiedioBval  art. 

Our  sail  through  this  fanciful  archipelago  was  a 
most  uncomfortable  one.  Our  stoves  had  been  taken 
down ;  and  the  scurvy,  exaggerated  by  the  increased 
exposure  to  damp,  began  again  to  bear  hard  upon  us. 
We  devoured  eagerly  the  seal,  of  which,  by  good  for- 
tune, we  had  several  re-enforcements ;  but  as  the  ex- 
citements of  peril  declined,  the  energies  of  the  men 
seemed  to  relax  more  and  more ;  and  I  had  reason  to 
fear  that  we  should  not  be  able  to  resume  our  search 
effectively,  until  the  health  of  our  party  had  under- 
gone a  tedious  renovation. 

It  had  been  determined  by  our  commander  that  we 
should  refresh  at  Whale  Fish  Islands,  and  then  hast- 
en back  to  Melville  Bay,  the  North  Water,  Lancaster 
Sound,  and  AVellington  Channel ;  and  certainly  there 
was  no  one  on  board  who  did  not  enter  heart  and  soul 


"til 


412 


KRONPRINSEN. 


into  the  scheme.     It  was  in  pursuance  of  it  that  we 
were  now  bending  our  course  to  the  east. 

The  circumstances  that  surrounded  us,  the  daily  in- 
cidents, our  destination  and  purpose,  were  the  same  as 
when  approaching  the  Sukkertoppen  a  year  before. 
There  were  the  same  majestic  fleets  of  bergs,  the  same 
legions  of  birds  of  the  same  varieties,  the  same  anx- 
ious look-out,  and  rapid  conning,  and  fearless  encoun- 
ter of  ice-fields.  Every  thing  was  unchanged,  except 
the  glowing  confidence  of  young  health  at  the  outset 
of  adventure.  We  had  taken  our  seasoning :  the  ex- 
perience of  a  winter's  drift  had  quieted  some  of  our  en- 
thusiasm. But  we  felt,  as  veterans  at  the  close  of  a 
campaign,  that  with  recruited  strength  we  should  be 
better  fitted  for  the  service  than  ever.  All,  therefore, 
looked  at  the  well-remembered  cliffs,  that  hung  over 
Kronprinsen,  with  the  sentiment  of  men  approaching 
home  for  the  time,  and  its  needed  welcomes. 

We  reached  them  on  the  16th.  Mr.  Murdaugh,  and 
myself,  and  four  men,  and  three  bottles  of  rum,  were 
dispatched  to  communicate  with  the  shore.  As  we 
rowed  in  to  the  landing-place,  the  great  dikes  of  in- 
jected syenite  stood  out  red  and  warm  against  the 
cold  gray  gneiss,  and  the  moss  gullies  met  us  like  fa- 
miliar grass-plots.  Esquimaux  crowded  the  rocks,  and 
dogs  barked,  and  children  yelled.  A  few  lusty  pulls, 
and  after  nine  months  of  drift,  and  toil,  and  scurvy, 
we  were  once  more  on  terra  firma. 

God  forgive  me  the  revulsion  of  unthankfulness ! 
I  ought  to  have  dilated  with  gratitude  for  my  lot. 

Winter  had  been  severe.  The  season  lagged.  The 
birds  had  not  yet  begun  to  breed.  Faces  were  worn, 
and  forms  bent.  Every  body  was  coughing.  In  one 
hut,  a  summer  lodge  of  reindeer  and  seal  skins,  was 


I 


AT    GODHAVEN. 


413 


a  dead  child.  It  was  many  months  since  I  had  look- 
ed at  a  corpse.  The  poor  little  thing  had  heen  foi 
once  washed  clean,  and  looked  cheerfully.  The  fa- 
ther leaned  over  it  weeping,  for  it  was  a  boy;  and 
two  little  sisters  were  making  lamentation  in  a  most 
natural  and  savage  way. 

I  gave  the  corpse  a  string  of  blue  beads,  and  bought 
a  pair  of  seal-skin  boots  for  twenty-five  cents ;  and 
we  rowed  back  to  the  brig.  In  a  very  little  while 
we  were  under  sail  for  Godhaven. 

We  were  but  five  days  recruiting  at  Godhaven. 
It  was  a  shorter  stay  than  we  had  expected ;  but  we 
were  all  of  us  too  anxious  to  regain  the  searching 
ground  to  complain.  We  made  the  most  of  it,  of 
course.  We  ate  inordinately  of  eider,  and  codfish, 
and  seal,  to  say  nothing  of  a  hideous-looking  toad 
fish,  a  Lepodogaster,  that  insisted  on  patronizing  our 
pork-baited  lines;  chewed  bitter  herbs,  too,  of  every 
sort  we  could  get;  drank  largely  of  the  smallest  of 
small-beer;  and  danced  with  the  natives,  teaching 
them  the  polka,  and  learning  the  pee-oo-too-ka  in  re- 
turn. But  on  the  2  2d,  by  six  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
we  were  working  our  way  again  to  the  north. 

We  passed  the  hills  of  Disco  in  review,  with  their 
terraced  summits,  simulating  the  Ghauts  of  Hindos- 
tan ;  the  green-stone  clifts  round  Omenak's  Fiord,  the 
great  dockyard  of  bergs ;  and  Cape  Cranstoun,  around 
which  they  were  clustered  like  a  fleet  waiting  for  con- 
voy. They  were  of  majestic  proportions;  and  as  we 
wound  our  way  tortuously  among  them,  one  after  an- 
other would  come  into  the  field  of  view,  like  a  tem- 
ple set  to  be  the  terminus  of  a  vista.  At  one  time 
we  had  the  whole  Acropolis  looking  down  upon  us  in 
silver ;  at  another,  our  Philadelpia  copy  of  the  Par- 


I 


I 

I 

I 


Hi    '    ( 


^^i^'i 


414 


BERGS. 


theiion,  the  monumental  Bank  of  the  United  States, 
stood  out  alone.     Then,  again,  some  venerable  Cathe- 


— -T  .-■  i^«^ 


dral,  vrith  its  deep  vaults  and  hoary  belfries,  would 
spread  itself  across  the  sky;  or  perhaps  some  wild 
combination  of  architectural  impossibilities. 

We  moved  so  slowly  that  I  had  time  to  sketch  sev- 
eral of  these  dreamy  fabrics.  The  one  which  is  en- 
graved on  the  opposite  page  was  an  irregular  quad- 
rangle, projected  at  the  extremity  of  a  series  of  ice- 
structures,  like  the  promontory  that  ends  an  isthmus : 
it  was  crowned  with  ramparts  turreted  by  fractures ; 
and  at  the  water-line  a  great  barreled  arch  went  back 
into  a  cavern,  that  might  have  Aibled  as  the  haunt  of 
sea-kings  or  smugglers.  Another*,  much  smaller,  but 
still  of  magnificent  size,  had  been  excavated  by  the 
waves  into  a  deep  grotto  ;  and  the  light  reflected  from 
the  bay  against  its  transparent  sides  and  roofs  colored 
them  with  a  blue  too  superb  for  imitation  by  the  brush 
or  pencil. 


tsmmmmoKm 


-  il 


'   -i*^'!?' 


'^■ktSh'  ' 


'^'p:i^.::'ti^f^^_ 


■■-'•.f- 


•     l| 


I  ' 


i      III 


-      Il 


:r       fl 


■in.?':r 


?fr   -m-f^i''': 


i 


414 


BE  JtUS. 


thvfi.ni,  tUe  im)iui)ri»»)ifiti   I.Uni^  oj'  the  TTnitixl  Sttit^s;. 
•^ooil  out  aloiio,     Th«n,a.jfain,  M>iiv*>  vyimrableC-.ithe 


Jf  ^:  *_ 


•i;^:'*  r^  '^1 


I  i-f  ■ 


,;f .'  ^.'.''T-V-'  <■'■'  '*.^  ':'■ 


■* 


>fn-»>a*1  itr^^l^'  ^m»V'  t^^  ^y  .  ar   ^i*»dlA5;>^  f^.tw-   «-.Ul 

<'0(n  hi  nation  (:»f  ^rjf.%^<\v*^M  k  4J*«v.'^/^*?5^feJ*^*l 

era!  ol'  tl;ese  tlretimy  tabrics.  1'lie  ono  which  is  t-n- 
graved  on  the  opposite  pajre  was  an  iriee-ular  <iiia.rl- 
rangle,  projected  at  tlio  extremity  of  a.  series  oi'  ice- 
8truff;nres,  iik*^  tlie  promontory  that  endH  ai)  istlumi.-': 
if  vva»:  crowited  witit  rsimpMris  twrreted  hv  irH<-tur.?s; 
fu-M  at  the  water-line  a  f/reat  barrel'^d  arr-h  went  }>ack 
JL'to  i\  e;i,yeni,  that  nui(ht  have  fahled  a.s  the  haunt  of 
v.«•rt-kuit^■^  or  sniug:fr]ers.  Auo*-hpr,  inucli  smaller,  hm 
uiil  of  niagnifieent  size,  had  he»'n  exeavated  hv  fh' 
\vjivp-'  'vU^  ade<  p  L'rotto ;  and  th»^  Hirht  reflected  from 
the  ba\  ^*iminst  its  traUvsparent  sides  and  rodf^  eoionvi 
theni  v(y',u  .-i.  ^^'m-  too  sup.O!  h  ibr  imitation  by  the  brw*^- 
.01  penei' 


m 


■^ 


*&!».;  *»i.:?s?i!||;» 


■ii/ 


c 

3D 

2-      " 


o 

CO        I 

o 


..\.  .:,-■-.■.-■  •    ■  v^MW^Ti*.-      ■.■■  :.<■ 


It 


I 


'■l^ 

1.^-: 


■  4 


f.iii 


m 


ii 


it 


■•'Jl 


OFF    STOROE. 


41. 


In  the  morning  of  the  24th  we  made  the  pack; 
more  to  the  south,  therefore,  than  hist  year.  It  ap- 
peared  at  first  like  a  firm  neck,  extendin*r  out  amoii«]f 
heavy  hergs  well  into  Ilaroo  Island ;  and  romemher- 
mg  our  last  year's  experience,  we  moved  cautiously. 
But  after  a  while,  our  captain,  now  perhaps  the  best 
ice-master  afloat,  determined  on  boring.  The  dolphin- 
striker  was  triced  up,  the  boats  were  taken  on  board, 
and  the  old  sounds  of  conning  the  helm  began  again. 
This  time  we  were  lucky.  In  four  hours  we  were 
through  the  tongue  of  the  pack,  and  out  in  nearly  an 
open  sea. 

We  did  not  move  long,  however,  before  the  navi- 
gation became  embarrassed.  The  ice  between  Cape 
Lawson  and  Storoe  was  too  compact  to  be  wedged 
aside ;  and  after  some  rude  encounters  with  the  floes, 
and  a  narrow  escape  from  a  reef  of  rocks  which  Ctip- 
tain  Graah's  charts  do  not  mention,  we  found  our- 
selves, on  the  25th,  nearly  embayed  by  the  noble  head- 
lands off  Ovinde  Oernie.      The  ice,  in  a  horseshoe 


l){ 


ie 


Ifir  -  ''■^^' 


«;.      ' 


I 


Jl.     ,*t 


EiisM.   ') 


416 


HABITS    OF    THK    SEAL. 


curve,  completely  shut  us  in  to  the  north,  and  the 
tongue  of  the  pack  we  had  come  through  lay  between 
us  and  the  sea.  The  wind  had  left  us.  We  were 
drifting  listlessly  in  a  glassy  sea  that  reflected  the 
green-stone  terraces  and  strange  pyramidal  masses  of 
its  romantic  shores. 

We  amused  ourselves  killing  seals.  There  must 
have  been  hundreds  of  them  of  all  varieties  playing 
about  us.  Generally  they  were  to  be  seen  paddling 
about  alone,  but  sometimes  in  groups,  like  a  party  of 
school-boys  frolicking  in  the  Schuylkill.  One  of  their 
favorite  sports  was  "  treading  water,"  rising  breast- 
high,  keeping  up  a  boisterous,  indefatigable  splashing, 
and  stretching  out  their  necks,  as  if  to  pry  into  the 
condition  of  things  aboard  ship.  We  compared  their 
behavior  to  that  of  the  timorous  but  curious  natives, 
when  the  Europeans  first  met  them  in  the  waters  of 
America ;  and  in  our  intercourse  with  them,  conformed 
accurately  to  the  Spanish  precedent. 

Occasionally  only  we  obeyed  our  "  manifest  des- 
tiny" with  reluctance.  Some  of  the  younger  of  these 
poor  sea-dogs  had  overmuch  of  the  honest  expression 
of  tlieir  land  brethren :  the  truncation  of  the  muzzle  in 
others,  with  no  external  ear  showing  behind  it,  set 
their  faces  in  almost  perfect  and  human-like  oval. 
When  one  of  these  would  come  up  out  of  the  water 
near  us,  and,  raising  his  head  and  shoulders,  that  stoop- 
ed like  those  of  a  hooded  Esquimaux,  gaze  steadily  at 
us  with  his  liquid  eye,  then  diving,  come  up  a  little 
linearer  and  stare  again ;  so  drawing  nearer  and  nearer, 
diving  and  rising  alternately,  till  he  came  within  nms- 
ket  range  ;  it  sometimes  went  hard  to  salute  him  with 
a  bullet. 

We  shot,  among  others,  a  very  large  beast  (P.har- 


j,v|tt«i, 


"ine 


»J? 


:ession 
:zle  in 
it,  set 

oval, 
water 
stoop- 
ily  at 

little 


':^  'M 


SB 


iX'-l 


ti'jv.;""  '? 


.r^i- 


":ri. 


■ '  V 


&>  ^ 


>     V    |l 


,» . 


bar 


■%rr  'V-  r»  .■  ;4*^ 


III' 


416 


TT    \     r>  T   T'    ^ 


u.    ^l:;AL. 


i 


•'i;.'. :.   K'.:v.\pU'Xi^\)  ib'it   us  ii.   10   tltt;    >iorth,  find   ilio 
-■•ngufj'of  the  ptokwe  had  como  tbruiigii  lay beiw.jHii, 
iu  and   flu)  s«?^      Thewmd.  IhkI  )  oft- us.     We  \vi>re 
driltifjg  iiwtle.ssly  »n  a  j[f|n,>.vv-  sea  iltftt  reflected  th(' 
((reon-stone  terraces  and  .-»<.- ''.j^^e  pyniitiidi^l  ruus.seis  o; 
its  romantic  sliores. 

We  aiaused  ourselves  k/'"<iug  s^aias.  Is.';*tj  mu'ii 
have  beej).  hiindieda  of  tr^.M  of  ail  varielK*  r.laviniij 
uboiit  us.  Generally  tL»iv  wore  to  be  sf^eu  paildliM^ 
about  aloiie,  but  s(naetiuit.^  in  groupf^,  Jike  a  parfy  u!" 
schooKboys  frolicking  •  ji  ijio  Schuylkill.  Chm  of  tlicir 
favorite  sports  war:,  *M leading  wat'^-r,"  risiiii,'  bjeasi- 
high,  keeping  up  a  bnj^terous,  indefatij^^able  spja^liin*;, 
vnd  slretching-  o!it  their  necks,  as  if  to  pry  into  the 
<'on.]it,ioi)  ot';hij:;^s  abon.d  ;diip.     "We  coiupaj-ed  their 

fir  ''.rnorL/us  but  curio ui>  ai4>^'*'. 

I*"  i:    "J!    >t  tJjg?'^    ;;;    ^■' 


behavior  lu  vJ.at  ..■} 


Mu)     v.:''i  ;'-i.i(  lu/ior      >"''>ju»' iif  i;,iUt*  )'*iin*^!fr  0^  ri^-n' 
po<..r  sea-do^rs  iuui  overiniurlj  •>]  th«  houest  expiessiou 
of  their  find  brr  <  hxou  :  tliAj  truncation  ofthe  muzzle  it. 
others,  with   no  «'xtejaal  ear  sliowiufr  behind   it,  ,s<" 
their  faces   in   Hiniosl    perfect-  and  hnmandik(-  oviv 
When  oiic  el  tinv-ie  Wdn].!  criMW)  up  out  oj*  the  wal* 
iurar  ns,  ajid.  niisin<i  iii-^  ib.'.iJ  .md  should ei ?,  that  s(^>*- 
od  like  rJiose  <.>f  a  h'V)d'^l  IvsiHr-jA'xux,  gaze  »tcadily  .' 
Hi  With  hi-  fiquid  o\<\,  thori    ;  vinf»,  come  nj>  a  ii:olo 
rv^Mver  aiid  stare  aj^ain  ;  so  (!••.•  wirn^  nearer  and  r-viruM-, 
-it vvttjer  f)nd  rivhiir  ulternatel) ,  fi!!  he  «•  ime  withi.    :iO> 
k"?  -*?  ,i^.  •  .  if  ;5(!;nel!faes  went  hunl  to  .salute  hub  vi;,. 
.i.  hiaf  • 

VV<3  *^hri.        ■  >T  otherK»  a  Vf-ry  iar-je  lH-M.,>t  ('/    'xv- 


■\ 


i 


i^ 


'V1.V 


'f/ .'  - 


•4  -;C%^ 


.■•.■■*:^ 


f.^3i 


1. '  i!'»i 


f  .■■£ 


;'i  ^iifil' 


^^t 


>'/ 


vm 


m 


I'l.jf 


n  '?  1    r<  I 


^IK 


SEAL    HUNTS. 


417 


bata),  lying  upon  a  floating  piece  of  ice.  The  captain's 
ball  went  through  his  heart;  and  my  own,  equally 
deadly,  within  a  few  inches  of  it ;  hut  the  unwieldy 
creature  continued  struggling  to  reach  the  water,  until 
a  shot  from  Mr.  Lovell,  close  upon  him,  drove  a  mus- 
ket-hall through  his  head.  He  measured  eight  feet 
from  tip  to  tip,  five  feet  eleven  inches  in  his  greatest 
circumference,  and  five  feet  six  inches  in  girth  behind 
the  fore-flippers.  His  carcass  was  a  shapeless  cylin- 
der, terminating  in  an  awkward  knob  to  represent  the 
head. 

We  lost  two  seals  by  sinking.  Hitherto,  when  kill- 
ed on  the  instant  by  perforation  of  the  brain  or  spinal 
marrow,  they  had  invariably  floated.  But  the  rule 
does  not  hold  always.  I  wounded  one  so  as  to  carry 
away  the  crown  of  his  skull,  and  Captain  De  Haven 
gave  him  a  second  shot  from  within  a  few  yards  di- 
rectly through  the  head,  and  yet  we  lost  him.  As  the 
balls  struck,  he  discharf:;ed,  almost  explosively,  a  quan- 
tity of  air,  and  went  down  like  a  loon.  The  whalers 
say,  wound  your  seals ;  but  my  own  experience  is,  that, 
if  they  are  fat,  it  is  best  to  kill  them  at  once.  A  Dan- 
ish boy,  who  had  joined  us  by  stealth  at  Disco,  told 
us  that  the  animal's  sinking  was  a  proof  that  he  had 
no  blubber.  He  was  probably  right :  we  certainly  did 
not  secure  any  that  were  in  good  condition. 

The  next  day  gave  us  excitement  of  a  different  sort. 
We  had  been  lying  in  the  young  ice-field,  close  under 
the  southeast  shore  of  Storoe,  with  the  current  setting 
strong  toward  it,  ai?d  a  grim  array  of  bergs  to  the  west 
of  us.  It  was  an  ugly  position ;  but  we  were  fairly 
entangled,  and  there  was  no  escape.  Early  in  the 
morning,  the  wind  freshened,  and  blew  in  toward  the 
island ;  the  ice  piling  against  the  rocky  precipice  under 

Dd 


i  11 


i 


m 


M 


k 


m;  'if! 


Si 


M^  -^ 


■..,"1, 


'rm 


■f! 


»! 


|l 


i  ) 

'  i 


418 


A    RAMBLE     ON    A    BERG. 


our  lee,  and  opening  in  broken  masses  to  windward. 
The  Rescue  managed  to  make  fast  to  a  crag  between 
us  and  the  shore,  but  our  ice-anchors  missed.  At  four 
in  the  afternoon  we  were  within  rifle-shot  of  the  land, 
and  still  drifting ;  the  wind  a  gale,  and  the  sea-swell 
coming  in  heavily. 

We  stopped,  of  course,  or  there  would  have  been  an 
end  of  my  journal.  But  for  some  hours  things  looked 
squally  enough.  Our  soundings  had  become  small  by 
degrees  and  beautifully  less,  till  they  were  down  to 
thirtaen  feet ;  and  the  black  wall  looked  so  near  that 
you  could  have  hit  it  with  a  filbert.  It  could  not 
have  been  fifty  yards  off,  when  we  brought  up  on  some 
grounded  floe-pieces.  By  eleven,  our  warps  had  head- 
ed us  to  windward,  and  our  bow  was  off"  shore.  For 
once,  at  least,  we  owed  our  safety  to  the  ice. 

The  Rescue  followed  a  few  hours  after;  and  we  took 
the  direction  of  the  pack  together  to  the  N.N.W.  By 
the  next  day  at  noon  we  were  within  twenty-three 
miles  of  Uppernavik,  but  a  belt  of  ice  hi^  between. 
We  anchored  to  a  berg,  and  for  two  days  waited  pa- 
tiently for  an  opening. 

My  messmates  in  the  mean  time  went  off  on  a  hunt 
to  a  flat,  rocky  ledge,  that  showed  itself  inshore,  and  I 
amused  myself  with  a  tramp  on  the  ice-island  to  which 
we  were  fast.  I  had  for  company  a  noble  Esquimaux 
slut,  that  Governor  Moldrup  had  enabled  me  to  get  at 
Disco,  and  a  dog  of  the  same  breed  belonging  to  Mr. 
Lovell.  I  do  not  know  what  has  become  of  Plosky, 
as  Mr.  Lovell  named  his  favorite  ;  but  my  poor  Disco 
fell  a  martyr  to  our  Philadelphia  climate  and  his  Arc- 
tic costume  together,  some  three  days  after  we  got 
home. 

I  had  a  quiet  day's  walk.     My  companions  rambled 


'*«;. 


f?l    "  ■•!»■ 


Lward. 
tween 
it  four 
}  land, 
i-swell 

eeii  an 
looked 
Qall  by 
)\vn  to 
ar  that 
lid  not 
n  some 
d  head- 
3.     For 

ive  took 
V.  By 
iy-three 
jtween. 
ted  pa- 

a  hunt 
,  and  I 
which 
limaux 
get  at 
to  Mr. 
Hosky, 
r  Disco 
lis  Arc- 
we  got 

ambled 


EXPLANATION. 


419 


with  evident  glee  over  the  peaks  and  ravines  of  their 
familiar  element.  It  was  a  magnificent  pile  of  frost- 
work. But  these  crystal  palaces  of  the  ice,  like  every 
thing  else  under  this  northern  sky,  deceive  one  strange- 
ly in  their  apparent  size.  We  thought,  when  we  an- 
chored, that  the  berg  was  a  small  one  ;  yet  we  coursed 
more  than  the  tliird  of  a  mile  in  almost  a  direct  line 
before  we  reached  its  further  edge. 

The  pure  surfaces  which  we  traveled  over  were  stud- 
ded with  irregular  blocks  of  ice,  evidently  once  de- 
tached and  cemented  on  again.  They  varied  in  size 
and  shape  from  a  boy's  playing-marble  to  a  haystack  ; 


::^jfj^0}0ii^^^^^' ;.  S^ 


and  by  their  interesting  distribution  suggested  most 
obtrusively  the  question  of  almost  every  Arctic  trav- 
eler, how  such  fragments  find  their  place  on  the  pla- 
teau surfaces  of  the  icebergs.  I  had  answered  the 
question  for  myself  before ;  but  I  was  glad  to  be  con- 
firmed by  the  observations  I  made  in  the  course  of  this 


m 


'■  -'i. 


fl!i 


-*ii 


420 


VISIT    OF    ESQUIMAUX. 


excursion.  When  first  the  mass  separates  from  the 
land-berg  or  glacier,  it  is  accompanied  by  a  large  quan- 
tity of  disengaged  fragments,  with  all  varieties  of  de- 
tritus ;  and  during  the  alternate  risings  and  sinkings 
that  follow  the  fall  into  the  sea,  a  great  deal  of  this  is 
caught  by  the  emerging  surface  of  the  berg,  and  ad- 
heres to  it.  I  noticed  valleys,  where  the  subsequent 
roll  had  rounded  the  masses,  and  grouped  them  into 
something  resembling  bowlder-drift.  I  had  seen  sim- 
ilar valleys  in  some  of  the  large  bergs  of  Duneira  Bay, 
supplying  a  bed  for  temporary  water-streams,  in  which 
the  bowlders  were  beautifully  rounded,  and  arranged 
in  true  moraine  fashion.  I  have  given  a  sketch  of  one 
of  these :  it  faces  this  chapter. 

Off  Storoe,  a  white  fox  (C.  lagopus)  came  to  us  on 
the  loose  ice:  his  legs  and  the  tip  of  his  tail  were 
black.  He  was  the  first  we  had  seen  on  the  Green- 
land coast. 

He  was  followed  the  next  day  by  a  party  of  Esqui- 
maux, who  visited  us  from  Proven,  dragging  their  ka- 
yacks  and  themselves  over  seven  miles  of  the  pack, 
and  then  paddling  merrily  on  board.  For  two  glasses 
of  rum  and  a  sorry  ration  of  salt-pork,  they  kept  turn- 
ing somersets  by  the  dozen,  making  their  egg-shell 
skiffs  revolve  sideways  by  a  touch  of  the  paddle,  and 
hardly  disappearing  under  the  water  before  they  were 
heads  up  again,  and  at  the  gangway  to  swallow  their 
reward. 

The  inshore  ice  opened  on  the  thirtieth,  and  toward 
evening  we  left  the  hospitable  moorage  of  our  iceberg, 
and  made  for  the  low,  rounded  rocks,  which  the  Hosky 
pointed  out  to  us  as  the  seat  of  the  settlement.  The 
boats  were  out  to  tow  us  clear  of  the  floating  rubbish, 
as  the  light  and  variable  winds  made  their  help  nee- 


ESQUIMAUX     GUESTS. 


42J 


essiiry,  and  we  were  slowly  approaching  our  anchor- 
ago,  when  a  rough  yawl  boarded  us.  She  brought  a 
pleasant  company,  Unas  the  schoolmaster  and  parish 
priest,  Louisa  his  sister,  the  gentle  Amalia,  Louisa's 
cousin,  and  some  others  of  humbler  note. 


The  baptismal  waters  had  but  superficially  regen- 
erated these  savages:  their  deportment,  at  least,  did 
not  conlorm  to  our  nicest  canons.  For  the  first  five 
minutes,  to  be  sure,  the  ladies  kept  their  faces  close 
covered  with  their  hands,  only  withdrawing  them  to 
blow  their  noses,  which  they  did  in  the  most  primi- 
tive and  picturesque  manner.  But  their  modesty  thus 
assured,  they  felt  that  it  needed  no  further  illustration. 
They  volunteered  a  dance,  avowed  to  us  confidential- 
ly that  they  had  educated  tastes — Amalia  that  she 
smoked,  Louisa  that  she  tolerated  the  more  enliven- 
ing liquids,  and  both  that  their  exercise  in  the  open 
air  had  made  a  slight  refection  altogether  acceptable. 
Hospitality  is  the  virtue  of  these  wild  regions:  our 
hard  tack,  and  cranberries,  and  rum  were  in  requisi- 
tion at  once. 

It  is  not  for  the  host  to  tell  tales  of  his  after-dinner 
company.  But  the  truth  of  history  may  be  satisfied 
without  an  intimation  that  our  guests  paid  niggard 


II 


•'JifS^ 


ly  ■'  ■\ 


iA^l'} 


1 
i 

7 


'  ir.  .. 


Ifcsr 


422 


PROVEN. 


honors  to  the  jolly  god  of  a  milder  clime.  The  veri- 
est prince,  of  bottle  memories,  would  not  have  quar- 
reled with  their  heel-taps.     *     '^     * 

We  were  inside  the  rocky  islands  of  Pre  uii  harbor 
as  our  watches  told  us  that  another  day  had  begun. 
The  time  was  come  for  parting.  The  ladies  shed  a 
few  kindly  tears  as  we  handed  them  to  the  stern- 
seats:  their  learned  kinsman  took  a  recumDent  posi- 
tion below  the  thwarts,  which  favored  a  continuance 
of  his  nap ;  and  the  rest  of  the  party  were  bestowed 
with  seaman-like  address — all  but  one  unfortunate 
gentleman,  who,  having  protracted  his  festive  devo- 
tions longer  than  usual,  had  resolved  not  to  "  go  home 
till  morning." 

The  case  was  a  difficult  one ;  but  there  was  no  help 
for  it.  As  the  sailors  passed  him  to  the  bottom  of  the 
boat,  and  again  out  upon  the  beach,  he  made  the  air 
vocal  with  his  indignant  outcries.  The  dogs — I  have 
told  you  of  the  dogs  of  these  settlements,  how  they 
welcomed  our  first  arrival — joined  their  music  with 
his.  The  Provenese  came  chattering  out  into  the 
cold,  like  chickens  startled  from  their  roost.  The  gov- 
ernor was  roused  by  the  uproar.  And  in  i\  midst 
of  it  all,  our  little  weather-beaten  flotilla  ran  up  the 
first  American  flag  that  had  been  seen  in  the  port  of 
Proven. 


OOMIAK. 


® 


■rl«y 


PROVEN    HILLS. 


CHAPTER  XL VI. 


The  port  of  Proven  is  securely  sheltered  by  its  mon- 
ster hills.  But  they  can  not  be  said  to  smile  a  wel- 
come upon  the  navigator.  A  smiling  country,  like  a 
smiling  face,  needs  some  provision  of  fleshly  integu- 
ments; and  no  earthly  covering  masks  the  grinning 
rocks  of  Pr()ven.  They  look  as  if  the  process  of  crum- 
bling, and  wrinkling,  and  splitting,  and  splintering 
had  been  at  work  on  theni  since  the  first  Arctic  frost 
succeeded  the  last  metamorphic  fire ;  and  even  now 
great  ledges  are  wedged  off  from  the  hillsides  by  the 
ice,  and  roll  clattering  down  the  slopes  into  the  very 
midst  of  the  settlement. 

Summer  comes  slowly  upon  Proven.  When  we 
arrived,  the  slopes  of  the  hills  were  heavily  patched 
with  snow,  and  the  surface,  where  it  showed  itself, 
was  frozen  dry.  The  water-line  was  toothed  with 
fangs  of  broken  ice,  which  scraped  against  the  beach 


IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


V. 


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1.0 


■tt  Uii   122 

I.!    l.-^Kfi 


Photograf^c 

Sciences 
Corporation 


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V 


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^ 


;\ 


33  WIST  MAIN  STRUT 

WnS7IR,N.Y.  14SS0 

(716)  •73-4503 


'^ 


424 


THE    HOUSE    OF   PROVEN. 


' 


■] 


as  the  tides  rose  and  fell;  and  an  iceberg  somehow 
or  other  had  found  its  way  into  the  little  port.  It 
was  a  harmless  lump,  too  deep  sunk  to  float  into  dan- 
gerous nearness;  and  its  spire  rose  pleasantly,  like  a 
village  church. 

"July  3.  I  am  writing  in  the  *Hosky'  House  of 
Cristiansen.  Cristiansen  is  the  Danish  governor  of 
Proven,  and  this  house  of  Cristiansen  is  the  House  of 
Proven.  Its  owner  is  a  simple  and  shrewd  old  Dane, 
hale  and  vigorous,  thirty-one  of  whose  sixty-four  win- 
ters have  been  spent  within  th«  Arctic  circle,  north  of 
70°  N.  Lord  in  his  lonely  region — his  four  sons  and 
five  subordinates,  oilmen,  the  only  white  faces  about 
him,  except  when  he  visits  Uppernavik — the  good  old 
man  has  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  no  superior.  His 
habits  are  three  fourths  Esquimaux,  one  eighth  Dan- 
ish, and  the  remainder  Provenish,  or  peculiarly  his 
own.  His  wife  is  a  half-breed,  and  his  family,  in  lan- 
guage and  aspect,  completely  Esquimaux. 

"  When  the  long,  dark  winter  comes,  he  exchanges 
books  with  his  friend  the  priest  of  Uppernavik.  *  The 
Dantz  Penning  Magazin,'  and  '  The  History  of  the  Uni- 
tas  Fratrum,'  take  the  place  of  certain  well-thumbed, 
ancient,  sentimental  novels ;  and  sometimes  the  priest 
comes  in  person  to  tenant  the  *  spare  room,'  which 
makes  it  very  pleasant,  '  for  we  talk  Danish.' 

"  Except  this  spare  room,  which  elsewhere  would 
be  called  the  loft  of  the  house,  its  only  apartment  is 
the  one  in  which  I  am.  And  here  eat,  and  drink,  and 
cook,  and  sleep,  and  live,  not  only  Cristiansen  and  all 
his  descendants,  but  his  wife's  mother,  and  her  chil- 
dren, grandchildren,  and  great-grandchildren  who  are 
growing  up  about  her.  It  is  fifteen  feet  broad  by  six- 
teen long,  with  just  height  enough  for  a  grenadier, 


THE    FAMILY. 


42^ 


without  his  cap,  to  stand  erect,  and  not  touch  the 
beams.  The  frame  of  the  house  is  of  Norway  pine, 
coated  with  tar,  with  its  interspaces  caulked  with  moss 
and  small  window-panes  inserted  in  a  deep  casing  oi 
wood. 

"  The  most  striking  decorative  feature  is  a  ledge  or 
shelf  of  pine  plank,  of  varying  width,  which  runs  round 
three  of  its  sides.  Its  capacity  is  wonderful.  It  is 
the  sofa  and  bed,  on  which  the  entire  united  family 
find  room  to  loll  and  sleep ;  and  upon  it  now  are  hud* 
died,  besides  a  navy  doctor  and  his  writing  board,  one 
ink-bottle,  sundry  articles  of  food  and  refreshment,  one 
sleeping  child,  one  lot  of  babies  not  in  the  least  asleep, 
one  canary-bird  cage  with  its  exotic  and  most  sorrow- 
ful little  prisoner,  and  an  infinite  variety  of  other  ar- 
ticles too  tedious  to  mention,  comprising  seal-skins, 
boots,  bottles,  jumpers,  glasses,  crockery  both  of  kitch- 
en and  nursery,  coffee-pots,  dog-skin  socks,  canvas  pil- 
lows, an  eider-down  comforter,  and  a  sick  bitch  with 
a  youthful  family  of  whining  puppies. 

"  Una,  the  second  daughter,  has  been  sick  and  un- 
der treatment ;  and  she  is  now  hard  at  work  with  her 
sisters,  Anna,  Sara,  and  Cristina,  on  a  tribute  of  grati- 
tude to  her  doctor.  They  have  been  busy  all  the 
morning  whipping  and  stitching  the  seal-skins  with 
reindeer  tendon  thread.  My  present  is  to  be  a  com- 
plete suit  of  ladies'  apparel,  made  of  the  richest  seal- 
skin, according  to  the  standard  mode  of  Proven,  which 
may  always  be  presumed  to  be  the  *  latest  winter  fash- 
ion.' It  is  a  really  elegant  dress.  To  some  the  unmen- 
tionables might  savor  of  mascularity ;  but  having  seen 
something  of  a  more  polite  society,  my  feminine  asso- 
ciations are  not  restricted  to  petticoats.  Extremes  meet 
in  the  Esquimaux  of  Greenland  and  Amazons  of  Paris. 


f 


I 


426 


ESQUIMAUX    LIFE. 


"  The  large  family  is  a  happy 
one:  so  small  a  home  could  not 
tolerate  a  quarrelsome  mess.    The  ^ 
sons,  the  men  Cristiansens,  brave 


and  stalwart  fellows,  practiced  in  the  kayack,  and  the 
sledge,  and  the  whale-net,  adroit  with  the  harpoon  and 
expert  with  the  rifle,  are  constant  at  the  chase,  and 
bring  home  their  spoil,  with  the  honest  pride  becoming 
good  providers  of  their  household.  And  the  women, 
in  their  nursing,  cooking,  tailoring,  and  housekeeping, 
are,  I  suppose,  faithful  enough.  But  what  favorable 
impression  that  the  mind  gets  through  other  channels 
can  contend  against  the  information  of  the  nose !  Or- 
gan of  the  aristocracy,  critic  and  magister  morum  of 
all  civilization,  censor  that  heeds  neither  argument  nor 
remonstrance — the  nose,  alas !  it  bids  me  record,  that 
to  all  their  possible  godliness  cleanliness  is  not  super- 
added. 

"  During  the  short  summer  of  daylight — it  is  one 
of  the  many  apparent  vestiges,  among  this  people,  of 
ancient  nomadic  habits — the  whole  family  gather  joy- 


ESQUIMAUX    LIFE. 


427 


ously  in  the  summer's  lodge,  a  tent  of  seal  or  reindeer 
skin,  pitched  out  of  doors.  Then  the  room  has  its  an- 
nual ventilation,  and  its  cooking  and  chamber  furni- 
ture are  less  liable  to  be  confounded.  For  the  winter 
the  arrangement  is  this :  un  three  sides  of  the  room, 
close  by  the  ledge  I  have  spoken  of,  stand  as  many 
large  pans  of  porous  steatite  or  serpentine,  elevated  on 
slight  wooden  tripods.  These,  filled  with  seal-blub- 
her,  and  garnished  with  moss  round  the  edge  to  serve 
as  a  wick,  unite  the  functions  of  chandelier  and  stove. 
They  who  quarrel  with  an  ill-trimmed  lamp  at  home 
should  be  disciplined  by  one  of  them.  Each  boils  its 
half-gallon  kettle  of  coffee  in  twenty  minutes,  and 
smokes— like  a  small  chimney  on  fire ;  and  the  three 
burn  together.  There  is  no  flue,  or  fire-place,  or  open- 
ing of  escape. 

"  On  the  remaining  side  of  the  room  stand  a  valued 
table  and  three  chairs ;  and  with  these,  like  a  buhl 
cabinet  or  fancy  etagere,  conspicuous  in  its  modest 
corner,  a  tub.  It  is  the  steeping-tub  for  curing  skins. 
Its  contents  require  active  fermentation  to  fit  them  for 
their  office ;  and,  to  judge  from  the  odor,  the  process 
had  been  going  on  successfully." 

We  warped  out  to  sea  again  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
third,  with  our  friend  the  cooper  for  pilot ;  the  entire 
settlement  turning  out  upon  the  rocks  to  wish  us  good- 
by,  and  remaining  there  till  they  looked  in  the  dis- 
tance like  a  herd  of  seal.  But  we  found  no  opening 
in  the  pack,  and  came  back  again  to  Proven  on  the 
fourth,  not  sorry,  as  the  weather  was  thickening,  to 
pass  our  festival  inside  the  little  port. 

Our  celebration  was  of  the  primitive  order.  We 
saluted  the  town  with  one  of  the  largest  balanced 
stones,  which  we  rolled  down  from  the  cliff"  above ; 


428 


A    NIGHT    SCENE. 


.v> 


t^J  '-'V- 


'•! 


.iit 


and  made  an  egg-nogg  of  eider  eggs ;  and  the  men 
had  a  Hosky  ball ;  and,  in  a  word,  we  all  did  our  best 
to  make  the  day  differ  from  other  days — which  at- 
tempt failed.     Still,  God  ever  bless  the  fourth ! 

The  sixth  was  Sunday,  and  we  attended  church  in 
the  morning  at  the  schoolmaster's.  The  service  con- 
sisted of  a  long-winded  hymn,  and  a  longer  winded 
sermon,  in  the  Esquimaux — surely  the  longest  of  long- 
winded  languages.  The  congregation  were  some  two 
dozen  men  and  women,  not  counting  our  party. 

We  put  to  sea  in  the  afternoon.  The  weather  was 
soft  and  warm  on  shore ;  but  outside  it  was  perfectly 
delightful :  no  wind — the  streams  of  ice  beyond  en- 
forcing a  most  perfect  calm  upon  the  water ;  the  ther- 
mometer in  the  sunshine  frequently  as  high  as  76°, 
and  never  sinking  below  30°  in  the  shade.  I  basked 
on  deck  all  night,  sleeping  in  the  sun.  « 

And  such  a  night!  I  saw  the  moon  at  midnight, 
while  the  sun  was  slanting  along  the  tinted  horizon, 
and  duplicated  by  reflection  from  the  water  below  it : 
the  dark  bergs  to  seaward  had  outlines  of  silver ;  and 
two  wild  cataracts  on  the  shore-side  were  falling  from 
icebacked  cliffs  twelve  hundred  feet  into  the  sea. 


BRITISH    WHALERS. 


429 


July  7.  I  was  awakened  from  my  dreamy  sleep  to 
receive  the  visits  of  a  couple  of  boats  that  were  work- 
ing slowly  to  us  through  the  floes.  An  English  face — 
two  English  faces — twelve  English  faces :  what  a  hap- 
py  sight !  We  had  had  no  one  but  ourselves  to  speak 
our  own  tongue  to  for  three  hundred  days,  and  were 
as  glad  to  listen  to  it  as  if  we  had  been  serving  out 
the  time  in  the  penitentiary  of  silence  at  Auburn  or 
Sing-Sing.  Their  broad  North  Briton  was  music.  It 
was  not  the  offensive  dialect  of  the  provincial  English- 
man, with  the  affectation  of  speaking  his  language 
correctly ;  but  a  strong  and  manly  home-brew  of  the 
best  language  in  the  world  for  words  of  sincere  and 
hearty  good-will.  They  had  to  turn  up  their  noses 
at  our  seal's-liver  breakfast ;  but,  when  they  heard  of 
our  winter  trials,  they  stuffed  down  the  seal  without 
tasting  it.  I  felt  sorry  after  they  were  off,  that  I  had 
not  taken  their  names  down  every  one. 

The  whaling  vessels  to  which  they  returned  were 
in  the  freer  water  outside  the  shore  stream,  the  Jane 
O'Boness,  Captain  John  Walker;  and  the  Pacific,  Cap- 
tain Patterson.  These  gentlemen  boarded  us  as  soon 
as  we  got  through  the  ice  to  them.  They  thought  our 
escape  miraculous;  and  it  was  some  time  before  they 
found  words  to  congratulate  us.  "  Augh !"  and  "  Won- 
derful !"  with  a  peculiar  interchange  of  looks,  was  all 
they  said. 

These  burned  children  dread  the  fire;  and  their 
conversation  opened  our  eyes  to  dangers  we  had  gone 
through  half  unconsciously.  Few  masters  in  the 
whaling  trade  but  have  at  some  time  suffered  wreck. 
Two  seasons  ago,  this  veteran  Patterson  saw  his  ship 
thrust  bodily  through  another,  and  then  the  transfix- 
ed and  transfixing  vessels  were  both  eaten  up  together 


ii 


If 


'*,. 


430 


BRITISH     WHALERS. 


by  the  greedy  floes.  He  stepped  from  the  last  rem- 
nant of  his  buried  sail  on  to  the  hummocks :  "  And 
that's  a'  that  e'e  ha'  seen  o'  her !" 

They  left  us  newspapers,  potatoes,  turnips,  eggs,  and 
fresh  beef  enough  to  eat  out  every  taint  of  scurvy ! 
They  took  letters  from  us  for  home,  and  cheered  ship 
when  we  parted.  I  must  not  soon  forget  the  Pacific 
and  Jane  O'Boness. 


WHALERS   NEAB   THE   PACK. 


INTLRIOR   OF   A    NATIVK    liUT,   UPHERNAVIK. 


CHAPTER  XLVII. 


The  next  day,  beating  hard  to  windward,  we  made 
Uppernavik  again.  The  scenery  n-  jund  it  was  very 
striking,  exhibiting  some  magnific  «  mural  sections 
of  gneiss  and  slates.  The  entering  headland  was  some 
fifteen  hundred  feet  high.  We  found  all  the  hills 
patched  with  snow  to  the  water's  edge,  where  their 
bases  are  abraded  by  the  moving  floes  from  one  year's 
end  to  another. 

Mr.  Murdaugh  and  myself  visited  the  town ;  that  is 
to  say,  the  priest's  house,  the  governor's  house,  the  oil 
house,  the  school-church  house,  and  sundry  native 
huts.     The  wood-cut  at  the  head  of  the  chapter  gives 


r 


432 


UPPER    NAVIK. 


the  interior  of  one  of  them,  in  which  we  superintend- 
ed the  manufacture  of  a  dish  of  coffee. 

We  were  received  by  the  governor,  accompanied  by 
an  old  friend  of  ours  from  Proven,  a  sort  of  secretary 
there,  "  plenty-scribe-'em"  as  he  styled  himself.  The 
old  gentleman  had  arrived  at  two  that  morning,  in  a 
whale-boat,  with  his  stalwart  sons,  after  thirty-two 
miles  of  pulling  through  the  ice  against  the  wind. 
"  Keesey  ver  bod,"  he  said ;  "  the  ice  was  very  bad." 

The  governor,  superior  in  tone  to  Cristiansen,  who 
is  a  self-made  man,  welcomed  us  with  fine  Danish 
good-breeding,  and  there  is  no  good-breeding  better. 
We  found  him  out  to  be  a  desperate  conservative,  fear- 
ful of  nothing  but  change.  His  house  was  after  the 
fashion  of  Mr.  Moldrop's,  of  Godhaven,  and  scrupu- 
lously clean.  Coffee  was  served ;  and  we  had  the 
honor  of  being  introduced  to  three  young  ladies  of  the 
half-breed,  absolutely  with  frocks  on.  I  thought  I 
could  see  that  one  of  them  had  pantalettes  of  seal-skin 
peeping  out  from  under  her  skirt,  and  a  wiser  critic 
than  myself  might  have  said  that  all  their  dre*sses  were 
somewhat  antique  of  fashion.  But  they  met  us,  on 
the  other  hand,  with  a  lady-like  disregard  of  our  own 
outlandish  costume;  and  though  our  language  was 
somewhat  composite  in  its  idiom,  for  I  understand  nei- 
ther the  Danish  nor  the  Hosky,  and  they  understood 
very  little  English,  we  managed  to  keep  up  quite  an 
animated  conversation.  It  was  very  pleasant  to  re- 
lapse in  their  company  for  a  while,  into  the  manners 
of  society  at  home. 

We  saw  also  the  family  of  Petersen,  Penny's  dog 
and  Esquimaux  manager,  all  neat  and  pleasing  per- 
sons; the  sons,  frank,  manly  fellows,  and  the  eldest 
daughter  really  quite  refined  and  pretty.    But  we  did 


BAFFIN    S     ISLANDS. 


433 


not  remain  long.  Our  Aberdeen  friends  had  transfer- 
red to  us  a  full  supply  of  newspapers  which  they  had 
brought  for  Penny ;  so,  after  prescribing  for  the  gov- 
ernor's child,  and  receiving  a  dog-skin  jumper  for  my 
fee,  we  returned  on  board  to  review  the  annals  of  the 
outer  world  for  the  past  year. 

We  now  pursued  our  way  very  smoothly.  We  had 
delightful  weather ;  not  the  best,  indeed,  for  men  whose 
errand  lay  ahead,  but  still  very  welcome  to  those  who 
had  roughed  it  of  late  so  severely.  Summer  was  con- 
centrating all  its  strength  and  beauty  in  the  long,  sun- 
encircled  day,  and  the  sky  looked  as  if  its  blue  and 
gold  sunshine  could  never  cloud  over  or  end. 

It  was  surprising  how  beautifully  the  sea  revived 
the  colors  of  the  atmosphere.  Wherever  we  looked 
down  into  it,  it  showed  deep,  like  an  inverted  sky.  It 
was  of  the  most  pellucid  clearness  too.  We  could  see 
the  perfect  jungle  of  sea- weed  that  was  growing  under 
us.  Actinia,  painted  with  gaudy  colors,  went  stream- 
ing by  on  the  tides;  Entomostraca  and  Limacinae 
grouped  themselves  among  the  branches ;  and  Clios, 
the  ideals  of  zoophytic  otium  cum  dignitate,  were 
flashing  colored  light  in  shady  places  from  their  ciliary 
vibrions,  or  lazily  turning  their  crimsoned  disks  to  the 
sunshine.  Every  now  and  then  some  exploring  crab 
would  rise  from  the  tree-tops,  and  waddle  down  again  , 
into  the  protecting  umbrage. 

As  we  went  on  the  bergs  became  numerous.  We 
sailed  through  a  town  of  them,  grouped  together  as  if 
on  purpose  for  stage  effect.  There  were  two  hundred 
and  five,  all  in  view  at  a  time. 

The  whalers  call  Baffin's  Islands  the  Duck  Islands, 
on  account  of  the  number  of  these  birds  that  breed 
there,  and  many  of  their  precipitous  headlands  Loon- 

Ee 


434 


THE     EIDER. 


m    7*«»  v.. 


■CENE  AT  Baffin's  iilandji. 


\\'\, 


heads,  for  a  similar  reason.  It  was  fine  sport  for  all 
hands  to  gather  eggs  from  the  rocky  crevices  in  which 
they  build.  The  birds,  when  disturbed  by  our  preda- 
tory visits,  literally  darkened  the  air ;  and  their  quick, 
sharp  cries,  the  hum  of  their  wings  flapping  around 
us,  and  the  surging  noise  of  the  sea  as  it  broke  against 
the  base  of  their  fortress  below,  all  together  might  have 
startled  a  novice  in  the  trade  of  plunder.  It  was 
something  like  "  gathering  samphire." 

AVe  found  the  eider  also  very  numerous.  In  the 
selection  of  their  nests,  I  remarked  that  these  birds 
avoid  the  soft  and  apparently  wind-protected  slopes ; 
a  wise  instinct,  as  the  drip  from  the  melted  snows 
would  expose  them  to  wet  there.  They  choose  gener- 
ally the  knobbed  face  of  some  summit,  where  coarse 
sedges  and  mosses  grow  against  the  stone.  Some- 
times the  nest  is  a  mere  depression  in  the  moss,  sparse- 
ly lined  with  down;  but  more  generally  it  is  con- 


THE     EIDER. 


435 


structed  with  considerable  skill  in  the  tussocks  of  a 
coarse  grass,  whose  straw  lasts  from  season  to  season. 
The  duck  and  drake  build  it  in  company.  They  free 
the  roots  from  mould,  net  the  fibres  together,  cement 
them  firmly  by  a  glutinous  excretion,  and  pad  the 
whole  of  the  interior  with  their  own  fine  down,  felt- 
ing it  well  against  the  sides. 

The  eider  is  an  awkward  bird  on  the  wing,  and 
hardly  graceful  in  the  water.  Its  square  and  block- 
like head,  set  clumsily  upon  the  neck,  reminds  one 
disagreeably  of  the  Ptero-dactyls  of  fossil  history.  On 
the  edges  of  the  floes,  while  congregated  together, 
quacking  and  feeding  on  the  helpless  Actinia,  they 
seem  another  animal.  The  position  of  their  legs,  set 
very  far  back,  throws  the  body,  penguin-like,  nearly 
upright ;  and  they  move  about  erect,  but  easily  and 
animated.  When  in  numbers  and  at  rest,  they  are 
wary  and  hard  to  approach ;  but,  like  most  of  the  An- 
atina3,  are  not  easily  diverted  from  their  line  of  flight. 
Their  apparent  stupidity  in  sweeping  over  certain 
headlands,  after  our  repeated  slaughter  of  their  fellows, 
was  like  that  of  our  own  canvas-backs  at  home.  Wo 
killed  numbers  by  station  shooting. 

But  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  eider  here  are  the 
whalers,  who,  whether  from  New  York,  New  England, 
or  Old  England,  are,  like  my  friends  the  Van  Nests  in 
the  veracious  history  of  Mr.  Knickerbocker,  desperate 
robbers  of  birds'  nests.  We  gathered  two  hundred  ei- 
der eggs  in  one  morning  before  breakfast;  but  this 
was  gleaning  a  reaped  field.  The  whaler,  Jane  O'Bo- 
ness,  had  four  hundred  and  fifty  dozen  on  board  :  she 
sent  us  a  market-basketful.  Parker's  vessel,  the  Pa- 
cific, had  nearly  as  many.  And  in  the  good  old  days 
of  the  fleet,  when  from  sixty  to  ninety  sail  dared  this 


IT 


111 


I 


n 


r 


I' 


436 


THE     PRINCE     ALBERT. 


Melville  Bay  in  a  season,  they  would  take  from  a 
couple  of  hundred  thousand  to  half  a  million. 

On  the  ninth  we  overtook  a  vessel,  which  proved  to 
be  the  M'Lellan  of  New  London,  the  hearer  to  us  of 
letters  and  papers  from  home.  My  seals,  thank  God, 
were  all  in  red  wax ;  and  I  missed  my  count  of  twen- 
ty-four hours,  by  sitting  up  through  the  whole  day- 
light night,  reading  them  till  it  was  breakfast-time. 

The  tenth,  we  came  up  with  the  whaling  fleet  ly- 
ing at  the  Barrier;  and  before  midnight  had  seven 
north  country  whaling  captains  from  them,  "  holding 
clack"  in  our  little  cabin.  The  sturdy  good  fellows 
were  overrunning  with  sympathy  for  dangers  which 
they  appreciated  better  than  ourselves,  but  did  not 
limit  its  expression  to  words  of  advice  and  warning. 
I  must  be  excused  for  saying  that  our  countryman. 
Quail,  the  master  of  the  M'Lellan,  made  us  pay  freely 
for  a  few  stores  we  obtained  from  l:"m,  lest  the  liber- 
ality of  these  good  Britons  should  b  esteemed  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  Money  could  hardl  have  paid  them 
for  the  luxuries  which  they  insiste  on  giving  up  to 
us.  Their  malt,  and  brandy,  an  vegetables,  and 
quarters  of  fresh  beef,  and  hauncl  s  of  venison  shot 
on  the  islands,  covered  our  decks. 

On  the  twelfth,  from  the  highc  r,  point  of  one  of  the 
Duck  Islands,  we  descried  with  our  object-glass  a  top- 
sail schooner  to  the  southward,  which  proved  to  be  the 
Prince  Albert,  bound  on  the  same  errand  as  ourselves. 
Her  commander,  Mr.  William  Kennedy,  boarded  us  at 
midnight  between  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth.  He 
had  more  home  letters  for  us,  but  he  brought  his  own 
welcome  with  him  besides.  His  demeanor  announced 
his  character  at  once.  He  had  with  him  Dr.  Cowrie, 
Hepburn  —  the  Hepburn  of  poor  Franklin's  Copper- 


MR.    KENNEDY    AND    M.    BELLOT. 


437 


mine  River  sufferings — and  an  excellent  ice-master, 
aamed  Leask.  We  saw  also,  in  the  course  of  the  day, 
his  second  in  command,  M.  Bellot,  a  volunteer  from 
the  French  navy,  an  accomplished  and  gallant  officer. 
[  regret  that  the  relations  of  confirmed  friendship  I 
have  established  with  these  gentlemen  make  it  indeli- 
cate on  my  part  to  speak  of  them  here  as  I  could  wish. 
I  have  no  means  of  knowing  if  Mr.  Kennedy  is  appre- 
ciated at  home — his  self-denying,  philanthropic  devo- 
tion, and  unostentatious  energy ;  but  it  has  given  me 
great  pleasure  to  hear  that  M.  Bellot  has  recently  re- 
ceived from  his  government  a  deserved  promotion. 

We  communicated  our  plans  to  each  other,  and 
agreed,  as  far  as  practicable,  to  pursue  our  course  to- 
gether. This  companionship  became  a  source  of  great 
satisfaction  to  us.  We  could  not  feel  solitary  while 
our  three  little  vessels  sailed  in  one  fleet.  We  fol- 
lowed each  other's  leads,  warped,  tracked,  and  bored, 
and  had  all  our  conflicts  with  the  ice  together.  When 
we  wero  beset  and  at  a  stand-still,  we  enjoyed  each 
other's  company,  ate  pemmican  and  loon,  went  out 
hunting,  and  took  long  walks  with  each  other. 

One  evening  I  remember  enjoying  a  delightful 
tramp,  with  both  M.  Bellot  and  Mr.  Kennedy.  We 
began  it  by  chasing  a  small  specimen  of  the  Polar 
bear.  They  made  signals  to  guide  us  from  the  Al- 
bert, where  they  could  see  his  course ;  and  after  puz- 
zling through  the  floes,  we  reached  a  large  berg,  be- 
hind which  he  lay  ensconced.  Mr.  Kennedy,  and  his 
follower,  Gideon,  took  one  side;  M.  Bellot  and  my- 
self the  other — it  being  our  task  to  turn  him  toward 
them.  We  got  within  about  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty yards  of  him  before  he  galloped  off.  M.  Bellot,  in 
his  excitement,  tumbled  down  twice,  and  fired  once. 


Iff 


' 


s?: 


.'>,! 


438 


PICTURESQUE     BERUS. 


Mr.  Kennedy  hallooed  also  repeatedly,  and  discharged 
his  piece.  I  am  perhaps  warranted  in  believing  that 
the  bear  heard  both  reports  before  leaving  us  to  our- 
selves, which  he  did  shortly  after  without  further  no- 
tice. 

This  failure  put  us  in  the  mood  for  a  long  straight- 
forward march.  We  proceeded  due  north  to  a  region 
completely  encumbered  with  bergs,  thrown  off  from  a 
great  glacier  hard  by.  About  four  miles  from  our  brig 
they  assumed  a  picturesque  variety  of  shape,  rarely 
seen  in  those  found  floating  out  at  sea.  It  was  not 
so  much  their  size  that  impressed  us — though  they 
were  very  large,  several  measuring  a  third  of  a  mile 
along  the  base — as  the  sharpness  and  boldness  of  the 
lines  where  they  were  caverned  and  cloven  down. 

We  attributed  some  of  this  effect  to  their  freshness 
and  recent  origin.  They  were  in  some  cases  so  stain- 
ed by  earthy  matter  as  to  show  plainly  the  different 
colors  of  the  cliff-side  they  had  rested  on,  some  dyed 
with  a  burned  umber,  others  with  the  black  of  an 
augite  formation.  One  was  a  conglomerate  of  great 
ice-bowlders,  stained  of  a  dark  tint,  but  cemented  to- 
gether by  ice  that  was  perfectly  clear. 

Another  had  the  shape  and  the  melancholy  coloring 
of  a  half-torn-down  old  mansion-house.  Some  dusky 
earths,  and  ash-looking  silt  from  the  ground-up  gneiss- 
es, streaked  the  gable-end,  like  the  sooty  chimney- 
flues  ;  other  ash-colored  patches  stood  for  old  plaster 
and  darlic*i,^d  whitewash ;  and  the  base  was  choked 
up  with  piles  of  building  stone.  There  are  few  things 
to  me  more  suggestive  of  sentimental  moralizing,  even 
ashore,  than  these  zigzag  smoke-passages  and  cham- 
bers torn  open  to  the  day.  But  I  had  not  seen  a  real 
house  for  full  fifteen  months ;  and  this  dreamy  profile 


^    n 


»l 


1 .  i 


S^^^bUb^I 

' 

i 

'; 

] 

ill^^M^^I 

4  W^-W»»'"'T'V  -.J?«!::^-ft-'.^-3ti=3T^%'^~*~s^"'«»fW^«*^'' 


itt! 


I- 


T 
I 


ti*i 


5    |lF.ftU«. 


<M'  .  ami  discliurs»^ed 

■  ^n  hf*!icvjiig  thai; 

•,ji?  U8  to  our- 


■■'K% 


vsx,  thrown  Oft  itmn  ft 


Hr  Kennedy  ballooc, 

iiw  bear  heard  both  ' 
wdv^es,  whicli  he  did  xiiD- 
tico. 

Thif3  failure  put  u**  in  tin 
Torward  luaroli.  W'l-  prrM-' 
conipletcdy  encLimb<^rf»d  wi? 
gioat  glacier  hard  by.  Abt*  it  ^mt  miles  Irojii  our  brig 
tht^y  assinried  n  picturcsqts*'  s^^ftriety  oi'  jihape,  rar<ly 
Kt'cn  in  thoso  to!uid  il<Mting  o*»t  B-t  ma.  it  was  not 
s(»  iiiucii  their  size  that  inipv'">!;5od  us — thonph  tlH'y 
■wen>  very  large,  several  incaf^ming  a  third  ol'  a  niile 
along-  the  base — as  the  sharpness  and  boldness  of  the 

col<>ri  of  ' . 

•with  ii-fetwrji«*d  mm^ft-^.'  * 

augito  formation.  (Me  vfm  »  «N^;ft«w<wieii*^  #^  ^**«*l 
ice-howlders,  staitied  of  a  dark  tint,  but  lamented  to- 
getlier  hy  ice  that  was  perfectly  clear.     - 

Another  had  the  slisipe  and  the  incla.neboly  coloring 
of  a  half-torn-down  o\(\  mmmmh*-^'^^:^^  '^hme  dusky 
earths,  and  ash-lookinf  sililkiM  Um  fm"»>id-Hn  gnei^s- 
m,  itreakfed  the  gftM#^«M^,  lik»  tte  swiTy  c.few«uey. 
fl»iv-'' ;  other  Bsh-coiored  patch**®  iit«*^  im  »M  plaster 
mv'A  darkened  whitewash;  and  th«  Imr*!!*-  mm  eiiokwl 
%  "  \#i  piles  of  liaildinj^  stone.  Hhm^  nm  fcw  thiiif** 
Pifii  >:ngffestive  of  sentimental  =       ttlizing',  ev^ 

ash'  ^.M5»«>  iigzm  ^moke-p^^-^^ien  and  chifeE%« 

hers*  ff  ;x>  |fa#*tfty      JHut  1  hM  not  seen  a  u^-^^- 

hoiise  <i'  .^*'*®  &?f*tfe»;  and  Hun  dreamy  ^t^itb 


^t   t^:;    '#y--:-W  T 


.a  <  i^ncn  down. 

■    -ft  im  M-ikiU" 


•-J  *- 


■41 

I 


tl  •>  '     '  ' . 

■>■; 

f-:^'5l 

■ 'f 

^#^ 
.*■?;» 

'.'k-^.v- 

^f] 

'  v;  V    ■<■  - 

;^tjfi.    , 

•w 

•II 

1 

*■ 

(V\^.. 

■•!//.       '■  i'- 

^fli 

■V^;v 

;#..:-:^: 

1^;: 

:'■,■■■,■ 

^  ij-'.f  ;.--    ■■.  ,■ 

p^'i  •■ 

''-'. ': 

.  -il'v"  ".;  ■'■' 

Pj$f 

v^v^.,- 

gj 

^R^^^ 

";S^: 

'*J\ 

^^^^<\ 

'  1  .\ 

■■  "".-'-■     ; 

Ift' 

m^' 

. '    .        '  ■ 

MByT.J  ..'■    . 

*-   ; 

JPWXf'"    ■' 

«■'    .  ■ 

.■•■■* 

■  -,»  r'' 

/I    , 

.  ■  '•          ■' 

li''  -■^' 

•■'   ■'  ' 

w?';  :•/«• 

■  .■-■' 

.     ,    -i 

fci.^v-V 

,"'  /"'.'. 

,:  [ 

,      ■ 

m-- 

■.■■..';'j.v 

■ '  '  '    ' . 

WHf-;-- 

';,;  i'-. 

'■*'•." 

^^f?:::':  : 

p. 

.'*  *--  ('     ' 

A'' 


ECHOES. 


439 


of  a  deserted  home  called  me  back  to  firesides  with 
blazing  back-logs,  and  family  circlings,  and  hallow- 
eves,  and  childish  laughter,  and  all  the  rest :  a  whole 
year's  mean  temperature  of  six  degrees  (5°  92^)  above 
zero  makes  the  flesh  tingle  for  a  hearth-stone. 

Some  of  the  bergs  were  worn  in  deep,  vault-like 
chasms,  through  which  a  way  was  practicable  to 
broader  caverns  within.  In  these  crystal  solitudes 
the  echoes  were  startling.  A  whistle,  your  own  whis- 
tle— you  could  hardly  recognize  it  for  the  length  and 
clearness  of  the  ring;  the  clang  of  a  ramrod  was  heard 
running  down  the  ranks  of  a  whole  army  in  review; 
and  when  you  spoke,  your  words  were  repeated  through 
the  motionless  and  elastic  atmosphere  in  syllables  al- 
most as  long  as  your  breath  would  hold  out  to  make 
them.  I  tried  a  hexameter  we  used  to  quote  at  home, 
and  it  came  back  to  me,  in  slow  and  distinct  utter- 
ance, word  for  word.  There  is  a  certain  cousin  of 
mine,  whom  I  remember  envying  in  our  school-boy 
days,  for  the  dispatch  with  which  he  could  say  his 
prayers  of  a  frosty  night  before  jumping  into  bed.  He 
may  think,  when  he  reads  these  pages,  how  odd  it 
would  have  been  to  hear  his  devotional  effort  repeated 
at  length  by  such  a  chorus  of  echoes  in  succession. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  rich  lazulite  blue  that  was  re- 
flected from  the  bergs.  It  combined  curiously  some- 
times wdth  the  atmospheric  tints.  About  two  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon  the  sun  shone  out  above  a  bank  of 
mist  with  that  metallic,  yellow  light  which  we  some- 
times see  when  it  clears  up  of  an  evening  after  falling 
weather.  Striking  on  a  berg  that  we  had  just  been 
remarking  for  the  purity  and  depth  of  its  color,  it  was 
reflected  over  us  in  a  flood  of  unearthly  green,  that 
opaque,  abominable  green  that  the  scene-painters  are 


■l  I 

I!  I 


440 


ADVENTURE     IN    THE     SLUDGE. 


1'   I 


V 

''III 


80  fond  of  for  their  scenes  of  diablerie,  without  one  ray 
in  sympathy  with  the  cheering  verdure  of  vegetation. 
I  have  never  witnessed  the  same  effect  in  nature. 
'^  They  were  pleasant  things  these  rambles  on  the  ice 
with  our  new  colleagues,  and  I  should  he  sorry  to  for- 
get them ;  but  they  were  sometimes  less  poetical  than 
the  one  I  have  been  speaking  of  There  was  a  part 
of  the  ice-field  that  extended  between  the  two  vessels, 
which  we  had  nicknamed  the  Albert  Floe.  A  part  of 
this  had  been  broken  up  by  the  swell,  and  a  space  of 
some  hundreds  of  yards  close  by  us  was  filled  up  for 
the  time  with  skreed,  forming  a  floating  platform  of 
tesselated  structure,  but  without  a  cement.  Mr.  Ken- 
nedy and  M.  Bellot  were  on  their  way  to  visit  us,  and 
had  just  reached  this  uncertain  pathway.  Know- 
ing the  difficulties  they  might  encounter  in  the  tran- 
sit, and  somewhat  vain,  I  fear,  of  my  own  ice-craft,  I 
took  a  boat-hook  and  started  off  to  meet  them.  The 
ice  happened  not  to  be  conveniently  arranged  for  my 
progress  in  a  direct  line;  and  at  the  best  of  times  it 
requires  the  composure  of  a  well-balanced  mind  to 
make  long  leaps  from  one  slippery  fragment  to  anoth- 
er, especially  when  the  dark  water  between  is  some- 
what cold  and  deep.  I  was  in  a  hurry,  I  suppose ;  for 
in  one  of  my  jumps  I  damaged  the  garniture  of  my 
nether  limbs,  and  was  constrained  to  halt  long  enough 
to  administer  some  temporary  repairs.  It  lost  me  a 
little  time;  but  I  jumped  along  for  some  hundred  yards 
more,  and  was  soon  near  enough  to  see  M.  Bellot  up 
to  his  neck,  and  Mr.  Kennedy  trying  to  fish  him  out 
with  a  boat-hook.  When  I  got  up  to  them,  which  I 
did  by  a  process  of  ferriage,  using  little  blocks  of  floe 
for  a  raft,  M.  Bellot's  Arctic  attire  presented  an  ap- 
pearance strikingly  aquatic  and  uncomfortable,    With 


ESQUIMAUX    DOaS. 


441 


the  unpretending  pride  that  hecomes  a  conscious  su- 
periority, I  engaged  to  pilot  him  hack  safely  to  our 
little  world  of  dry  clothes.  Of  my  success  I  am  not 
constrained  to  speak ;  hut  should  this  hook  ever  recall 
to  him  the  adventures  of  the  day,  he  shall  he  welcome 
to  his  laugh  at  my  expense.  I  confess,  when  he  was 
a  second  time  swimming  ahout  in  the  sludge,  I  really 
feared  his  dip  would  be  a  deep  one.  I  admit  also,  on 
the  evidence  of  my  shipmates,  that,  treated  as  a  group, 
the  effect  is  unique  of  a  couple  of  human  heings  slip- 
ping heels  up  on  an  ice-margin  while  they  are  hold- 
ing up  a  third  hy  the  strap  of  his  shot-pouch. 

Both  our  vessels  were  carrying  home  Esquimaux 
dogs.  By  continued  kindness  and  over-feeding,  I  suc- 
ceeded in  quite  changing  the  nature  of  ours :  both 
Disco  and  Hosky  were  on  the  high  road  to  civilization. 
But  those  on  hoard  the  Rescue  and  the  Albert  were 
still  as  wild  as  jackals :  let  loose  upon  the  ice,  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  catch  them  again.  One  after- 
noon, a  little  below  the  Devil's  Thumb,  when  the  dogs 
of  the  Albert  were  out  on  the  floe  for  exercise,  a  sud- 
den breeze  allowed  her  to  work  to  windward  through 
an  open  lead.  One  poor  dog  was  left  behind.  Boats 
were  sent  out  to  recover  him,  and  we  all  tried  by  voice 
and  gesture  to  coax  him  toward  us.  But  the  half 
savage,  though  he  stood  gazing  at  us  wildly  when  we 
were  at  a  distance,  ran  skulking  and  wolf-like  as  soon 
as  we  were  near.  We  were  forced  at  last  to  abandon 
him  to  his  fate.  We  could  see  him  for  hours,  a  dark 
speck  upon  the  white  floe ;  and  afterward,  as  far  off 
as  the  spy-glass  served,  still  with  his  head  raised  and 
his  body  thrown  back  on  his  haunches.  Worse  than 
this ;  such  was  the  quiet  expanse  of  ice  and  water, 
that  we  heard  the  poor  creature's  howling,  waxing 


y 

y 


m 


442 


ESQUIMAUX     DOGS. 


fainter  and  fainter,  for  eight  hours  after  we  left  the 
ice. 

The  training  of  these  animals  by  the  natives  is  of 
the  most  ungracious  sort.  I  never  heard  a  kind  ac- 
cent from  an  Esquimaux  to  his  dog.  The  driver's 
whip  of  walrus  hide,  some  twenty  feet  long,  a  stone 
or  a  lump  of  ice  skillfully  directed,  an  imprecation 
loud  and  sharp,  made  emphatic  by  the  fist  or  foot,  and 
a  grudged  ration  of  seal's  meat,  make  up  the  winter's 
entertainment  of  an  Esquimaux  team.  In  the  sum- 
mer the  dogs  run  at  large  and  cater  for  themselves. 

I  remarked  that  there  were  comparatively  few  of 
them  at  Holsteinberg,  and  was  told  a  melancholy  sto- 
ry to  account  for  it.  It  seems  that  the  governor, 
and  priest,  and  fisherman  keep  goats,  veritable  goats, 
housed  in  a  fire- warmed  apartment  in  winter,  and  al- 
lowed the  rest  of  the  year  to  crop  the  grasses  of  the 
snow  valleys.  Now  the  half-tutored,  unfed  Esqui- 
maux dog  would  eat  a  goat,  bones,  skin,  and,  for  aught 
I  know,  horns.  The  diet  was  too  expensive.  It  be- 
came a  grave  question,  therefore,  how  to  reconcile  the 
incompatibilities  of  dog  and  goat.  The  matter  was 
settled  very  summarily.  When  the  green  season  of 
sunshine  and  plenty  came,  the  dogs  were  sent  to  a 
rocky  islet,  a  sort  of  St.  Helena  establishment,  about 
a  mile  from  the  main,  with  permission  to  live  by  their 
wits  ;  and  the  goats  remained  to  browse  and  grow  fat 
at  large.  The  results  were  tragical.  The  dogs  were 
afflicted  with  sore  famine.  Great  life  battles  began ; 
the  strong  keeping  themselves  alive  by  eating  the 
weak.  By  this  terrible  process  of  gradual  reduction, 
the  colony  was  resolved  into  some  four  or  five  scarred 
veterans,  whose  nightly  combats  disturbed  even  the 
milk  drinkers  at  the  settlement,  until  the  remnant  at 


ESQUIMAUX    DOOS. 


443 


last  took  to  the  water  in  desperation,  and  succeeded  in 
reaching  the  shore.  From  these  came  the  "  parvum 
pecus"  that  we  saw. 

At  Holsteinberg,  however,  the  sledge  is  less  neces- 
sary than  further  to  the  north.  It  is  only  when  the 
winters  are  both  long  and  close,  for  the  state  of  the 
ice  depends  on  the  winds  as  well  as  temperature,  that 
the  Holsteinberger  can  make  a  run  as  far  as  Disco. 
In  other  seasons  his  dogs  are  used  only  for  inner  trav- 
el, along  the  peculiarly  formed  valleys,  which  stretch 
back  like  the  fiords  to  interior  lakes. 

But  there  is  a  constant  intercourse  kept  up  by 
means  of  them  between  Omenak,  Rittenbank,  Cristian- 
shaab,  Egedesminde,  and  Disco ;  and  for  some  three 
months,  including  January  and  February,  they  are 
able  to  follow  the  land-floe  as  far  as  Proven  and  Up- 
pernavik.  At  these  last  settlements  the  dogs  are  ex- 
ceedingly numerous.  Our  friend,  the  cooper  at  Pro- 
ven, had  twenty-seven,  and  each  of  the  stalwart  sons 
of  Cristiansen  had  a  team  ^^f  twelve.  Large  numbers 
besides  thronged  the  outskirts,  like  their  pariah  breth- 
ren of  Constantinople  and  the  Nile.  They  do  not 
bark :  I  distinguish  between  the  bark  and  the  howl ; 
and  they  have  not  the  intelligent  movement  of  the 
tail,  which,  like  the  fan  of  a  Spanish  seiiorita,  I  hold 
to  be  the  most  expressive  and  graceful  of  all  the  sub- 
stitutes for  voice.  I  succeeded,  after  a  while,  in  mak- 
ing my  poor  Disco  greet  me  with  her  tail  erect ;  but 
she  died  before  she  had  learned  to  wag  it. 

For  the  purposes  of  draught,  the  dogs  are  fastened 
by  a  simple  breast-strap,  eight,  twelve,  or  even  four- 
teen abreast — a  single  trace  passing  from  each  to  a 
foot-board  on  the  sledge.  The  long  whip  is  the  sub- 
stitute for  reins:  a  sharp  hiss,  accompanied  by  the 


~\ 


'    .1.. 


444 


CHANGE     OP    WEATHER. 


lash,  if  need  be,  is  the  signal  for  greater  speed ;  and  a 
loud  "Aief"  calls  the  halt.  Harnessed  in  this  man- 
ner, they  will  travel  from  Uppernavik  to  Disco  in  two 
days  and  a  half,  resting  at  night;  and  for  shorter 
stages,  as,  for  instance,  between  Proven  and  Upper- 
navik, thirty-two  miles  of  actual  route,  they  have  made 
fourteen  miles  an  hour.  The  recent  explorations  of 
Mr.  Kennedy  have  shown  how  valuable  their  services 
can  be  made  to  an  exploring  party. 

The  weather  underwent  a  striking  change  on  the 
thirteenth.  The  ice-studded  sea,  so  indefinitely  ex- 
tended by  refraction  that  a  poet  might  have  likened 
it  to  a  turkois  set  with  pearls,  took  a  new  charac- 
ter. A  strange,  palpable  obscurity,  wreathing  up  in 
long  strata  to  the  northward,  gradually  wrapped  itself 
over  every  thing.  The  water  grew  intensely  black 
beneath  us,  and  vague  and  smoky  as  it  receded.  The 
ice-floes  that  used  to  cut  so  sharply  against  it  were 
now  lumps  of  whiteness  without  margin,  and  the 
bergs,  always  massive  and  monumental,  flared  up  in 
distorted  magnitude  like  white  shadows.  Every  thing, 
in  short,  grew  blurred  and  uncertain.  The  wild  fowl 
seemed  to  leave  a  streak  behind  them  as  they  cleaved 
the  misty  atmosphere ;  and  from  the  little  circle  of 
water,  still  visible  around  us,  the  wake  of  our  brig 
was  prolonged  like  a  tongue.  These  appearances  an- 
nounced the  southeaster,  the  wind,  of  all  others,  the 
most  fruitful,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  of  meteorological 
changes.  It  was,  besides,  a  leading  wind  for  our  re- 
turn to  the  North  Water.     ■   '  ■ 


CHAPTER  XLVIII. 


I  OUGHT  perhaps,  as  a  book-maker,  to  go  on  with  a 
diary  of  our  second  progress  toward  the  north.  But 
my  work  is  almost  done.  New  excitements,  more 
kindred  to  my  habits  than  those  of  authorship,  are 
urging  me  while  I  arrange  these  pages  for  the  press; 
and  I  feel  that  my  readers,  like  myself,  must  be  tired 
of  eftbrts  that  had  no  result. 

From  the  13th  of  July  to  the  13th  of  August  we 
loitered  along,  impatient  at  the  delays  which  every 
day  forced  on  us.  In  the  whole  month  we  made  but 
thirty-seven  miles.  Yet  we  had  no  lack  of  incidents, 
some  of  them  novel,  and  some  not  without  more  stir- 
ring interest.  But  the  scenery  of  the  bergs,  majestic 
and  varied  as  it  was,  began  to  weary  us.  Even  the 
hazards  of  our  narrow,  and  tortuous,  and  almost  criti- 
cal navigation  became  things  of  use ;  and  when  we 
found  ourselves  at  rest,  as  we  did  sometimes,  safe  and 
motionless  in  the  surface  of  an  ice-field,  we  were  wast- 
ed with  ennui. 

After  a  while,  the  leads  opened  close  into  the  shore, 
and  we  followed  them  almost  to  the  base  of  the  cliffs. 
From  this  position  the  indentations  and  occasional  de- 
pressions of  the  coast  enabled  us  to  see  into  the  coun- 
try to  a  considerable  distance. 

That  singular  ejected  rock,  the  Devil's  Thumb,  of 
which  I  have  given  several  sketches,  stands  in  the  re- 
cess of  a  curve,  of  which  Wilcox  Point  forms  a  head- 
land. The  shore  in  its  immediate  neighborhood  is  not 
lofty,  but  dotted  here  and  there  with  hills  jutting  out 


i%7: 


■„■.  f. 


\iM 


m 


a- 


nrr' 


(   I 


%M 


446 


ARCTIC   glaciers: 


through  massive  glaciers.  At  the  northern  sweep  of 
the  indentation  this  ice- wall  becomes  more  imposing; 
and  in  front  of  it  we  found  a  progeny  of  bergs,  crowd- 
ed together  so  close  that  we  could  not  count  them. 

These  glaciers,  though  differing  widely  in  form  from 
their  pinnacled  brethren  of  the  Alps,  have  an  impos- 
ing character  of  their  own.  So  far  as  dimensions  go, 
the  entire  mer  de  glace  might  repose  on  the  slope  of 
this  single  ice-hill,  and  Aletsch  in  one  of  its  ravines. 
Indeed,  the  whole  country  between  the  two  abutting 
head  hinds,  and  extending  back  as  far  as  the  eye  could 
reach,  was  filled  up  with  one  grand  frozen  mass,  so 
that  the  sea  and  its  open  fiords  seemed  scarcely  gate- 
ways enough  lor  the  mighty  reservoir  to  pour  forth  its 
bergs.  The  length  of  this  curve  was  estimated  by  Mr. 
Murdaugh  at  eighteen  miles;  but  the  ice  extended 
many  miles  further  along  the  coast  without  change. 

We  could  not  wonder,  after  this,  at  the  enormous 
quantities  of  bergs  which  lay  before  us.  At  the  es- 
carped base  of  the  glacier  they  were  jammed  and  jum- 
bled together  in  every  variety  of  confusion ;  some  of 
the  mountain  character  with  which  we  were  familiar, 
others  a  congeries  of  rubbish,  and  illustrating  every 
possible  condition  of  libration.  All  three  vessels  were 
in  a  cul  de  sac  of  floe-cemented  bergs,  and  were  obliged 
to  tie  up  and  wait  upon  their  movements. 

The  Alpine  glaciers  have  engrossed,  it  seems  to  me, 
the  field  of  scientific  dissertation  somewhat  unduly. 
Those  which  crowd  the  western  coast  of  Greenland 
have  perhaps  a  higher  interest;  growing  up,  as  they 
do,  in  a  climate  which  is  independent  of  altitude,  be- 
sides being  altogether  superior  in  magnitude  of  scale. 

The  southernmost  cape  of  this  so-called  peninsula  is 
nearly  in  the  latitude  of  59°,  some  500  miles  south  of 


weep  of 
iposing; 
,  crowd- 
:hem. 
rm  from 
I  impos- 
;ions  go, 
slope  of 
ravines, 
ibatting 
re  could 
nass,  so 
ly  gate- 
forth  its 
1  by  Mr. 
xtended 
liange. 
lormous 
the  es- 
iid  jum- 
3ome  of 
Limiliar, 
^  every 
sis  were 
obliged 


j:*w 


€• 


.    r 


w 

1 

.'M'i 


I'r. 


■V  r  .     ■   -  1' 


"•;f: 


vli 


-  ^•'  .^V--4^,^ 


■^    *    iiV.  ' 


.^■*-?C'^:'^ 


*■■■'''  "^.yt  i. 
..  .•     i'^^        ■■■■;  :^..'    .    '::,}^:Jh- 


to  me, 
imduly. 
;enland 
:is  they 
ide,  be- 

scale. 
isula  is 
)uth  of 


-m^  mm^ 


m/j<^ 


h(:.rh,/ 


r  ■.  1 


446 


41:;  (    no     >ii   KCU'^a^i 


tt*»ou>>h  irtfis.sivo  gktvicrs.  At.  tluj  u.i'thern  sweop  of 
tJ.e  iiidfiiUitioii  ih-  •  ■c-wai)  becomes  uiote  iinpoising'; 
ajid  in  i'rout  of  it  u>  ..juuI  a  progeuv  <.>}  h'M<,^H,  crowd- 
t*tl  together  so  clo;.      ;» >i  we  could  not  coiiiit  vlu^m. 

'Vhcar  glaciers,  ri-.  yj^h  diireriuf?  widely  iii  form  from 
tlieir  }jiiiiia«;ied  breitjren  of  tho  Alpa,  iia.v<>  aii  inipos- 
mg  clmraotor  of  th>.Hf  i»w  ji.  fto  iitr  as  4i^,.  :^t^  fo, 
the  entiro  tmr  He  ghee  im^ht  repo»4«  «*tt  iu*  -i«-^>a  oi 
this  single  icp-iiiil.  -iiid  Aiftjich  m  aii«  of  its  ravimie. 
Itidcod,  th«  whoio  couritrs  t..iiwot?n  the  two  ubutunsr 
h*^adl;.inds,  and  oxttM»d;;,e|*  ?.t.*r,k  «.s  far  as  the  e^'-e  could 
reach,  wiis  fiJicd  vi|.  v.it!;  oi«>  grajid  fi-o;<:en  mass,  so 
th.ut  the  8ea  aihi  ii-s  o]u;ii  !i.ord.s  &;eenitjd  scarcely  gate- 
ways cnouirh  tor  t  lio  mighty  reservoir  to  pour  forth  itis 
liw*rj:s.  'j'he  h^n/th  >^(  thix  eurvf^  wty^  estimated  by  Mr. 
MiifilMii^li  u.   T'sj/iiW't,  **uii'«*,    r- xi   tb«  ic«  exten«ted 

«'a,rped  K-Mf  ,i|  ,;;'»•  ^'^^v^?.*-*  ;^f...;_^  v.«».s--:- j*:umei;  bwA  jum- 
bled togctf.'.-r  'n  HViiry  vufV:H  of  confusion  ;  .Miwae  of 
the  mountain  churaeter  with  whicit  w^^  wer*'^  familiar, 
otiiers  H.  coiitT.M-ie.s  of  rubbish,  and  illustrating  every 
po.siible  condition  ol  ■sbrHtlou.  All  three  vessels  were 
in  a  cnl  do  sac  of  lJoc-<<  ii;'^'m4  ^verj^-,  and  wc-e  obliged 
lo  tie  up  ;i,nd  wait  up^"*)*  ^Li'?"   v^-.      • 

The  Alpine  gb.rto-  Ikw*'  ♦^i4f»fiB.  ,  ,  .<:'i';in.'s  lo  nje, 
ti'r  ^  idd  of  sei'^'iui.)-  ili^-sertaUi..-;*  )H4yrj;»nvho.t  miduly, 
Ttio.se  Uiich  orov/.[  ihe  we;v<«trn  %?iY'\^i  of  Greenland 
i:.''!  petriiap.-s  a  higher  interest;  ^r*jv:\i,^  np,  us  tbey 
tU:.  ■--  y>,  climate  winch  is  iiidopeiitb  )it  <  \'  altitude,  bo- 
fiidf  ■  v;i,'?»|i  allogotber  jaiperior  in  imnifutudo  of  scale. 

Tb     .  ,'i   ■'/ »j lU' ^^t  cap<'  '..i  this  so-called  peninsula  js 


nearly 


..  t  »;.i'!i-  oi'.*0  ,!jnme  oOO  miles  south  of 


i 


f^woop  of 
iriposing; 
s,  crowd- 
liwin. 
(»rm  froTn 
it»  iiupos- 

abutting 
?ye  could 

mass,  so 
;i'.ly  gaie- 
r  Jortii  its 
?d  by  BJr. 
extejuled 

.somQ  of 
la  miliar, 
|ii;.r  every 
i.iirs  wore 
^  uljliii^ed 

uhily. 
rectiJarid 
;is  thoy 
;!t{<3,  be- 
li'  scaltt. 
iMsiiia  it« 
outh   >t" 


V-       '^ 


I 


THEIR     SITE. 


447 


the  Arctic  circle.  This  termination,  which,  like  Good 
Hope  and  Comorin,  illustrates  Foster's  law  of  South- 
trending  peninsulas,  is  abrupt  and  precipitous.  The 
influences  of  the  surrounding  sea  give  to  its  climate 
an  insular  character,  and  seem  to  prevent  any  great 
glacier  accumulation. 

As  we  travel,  however,  to  the  north,  those  great  in- 
de.itations  known  as  the  Fiords,  which  penetrate  the 
metamorphic  ridges  at  right  angles  to  their  long  axes, 
serve  as  conduits  to  the  interior  ice.  The  settlements 
at  Baal's  River  and  Godhaab,  the  earliest  inhabited 
upon  the  coast,  and  near  the  region  of  the  ancient  Ice- 
landic colonists,  are  the  seats  of  large  glaciers.  These 
do  not  abut  directly  upon  the  sea;  but,  as  far  as  my 
inquiries  extended,  issue  in  troughs  that  enter  the 
fiords  from  the  north  and  south,  and  are  connected 
with  those  great  reservoirs,  or  mers  de  glace,  which, 
like  vast  table-lands,  occupy  the  unknown  interior. 
The  North  and  South  Strornfiords,  about  Holsteinberg, 
receive  similar  glaciers;  and  the  annual  hunts  for  the 
reindeer,  which  seem  to  have  carried  the  Esquimaux 
back  from  the  coast,  have  disclosed  great  masses  of 
ice,  at  whose  bases  the  animals  escaping  from  the 
musquitoes  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  hunter. 

When  we  reach  the  latitude  of  69°,  where  the  green- 
stone dikes  begin  to  modify  the  gneissoid  character  of 
the  ranges,  the  glaciers  approach  more  nearly  to  the 
actual  coast.  The  crystalline  schists,  however,  con- 
tinue with  lofty  headlands  as  far  as  Wilcox  Point; 
and  it  was  only  here,  where  the  mean  level  of  the 
coast  seemed  to  be  reduced,  that  the  great  glacier, 
properly  speaking,  began. 

Taking  a  headland  near  Wilcox  Point,  which  was 
known  to  be  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the 


448 


glaciers: 


k 


[f* '. 


ii 


W 


sea,  and  sweeping  round  to  another  headland  of  simi- 
lar elevation,  we  made  a  rude  approximation  to  the 
height  of  the  glacier  l)et ween :  it  was  about  seven  hund- 
red feet  at  the  coast-line.  Following  it  back  from  the 
sea  with  an  excellent  Fraunhofer  telescope,  we  could 
see  it  rising  slowly  by  a  gradual  talus  till  it  was  lost 
in  the  distance.  Its  undulations  over  the  buried  coun- 
try, which  it  overlaid  like  a  great  tombstone,  were 
marked  by  considerable  diversity  of  surface.  They 
were  occasionally  furrowed  by  ravines,  indicating  wa- 
ter action ;  and  in  these,  wherever  the  cliffs  protruded, 
a  long  earthen  stain,  garnished  probably  with  detrited 
rubbish,  extended  down  like  the  lines  of  a  moraine. 
Sometimes  the  surface  was  smooth  and  unmarred ;  but 
more  commonly,  and  especially  on  the  faces  of  more 
abrupt  descent,  I  recognized  the  crevasse  character 
which  I  have  noted  in  the  bergs.  I  also  observed  es- 
carpments of  ice  in  some  instances,  great  mural  faces, 
beyond  which  the  glacier  was  continued  again;  but 
these  were  rare. 

The  general  color  of  the  glacier,  like  that  of  the 
berg,  was  a  dead  white,  varied  only  a  little  by  alterna- 
tions of  light  and  shadow;  and  through  this  the  higher 
land  peaks  rose  like  dark  knobs.  In  two  places  I  no- 
ticed a  land  spur,  extending  at  right  angles  to  the 
axis  of  the  chain  until  it  reached  the  sea,  and  thrust- 
ing itself  boldly  through  the  ice  to  the  water-line, 
flanked  on  each  side  by  the  glacier  face. 

I  thought  too,  though  my  observations  with  the 
glass  were  too  rude  to  assure  me  of  their  correctness, 
that  I  could  trace,  in  the  general  configuration  of  this 
great  ice-surface,  delta-like  divisions,  such  rs  might 
be  induced  by  surface  streams  expanding  and  divari- 
cating as  they  approached  the  sea.    In  fact,  hosts  of 


THEIR     SUBSTANCE. 


449 


geological  analogies  suggested  themselves,  which  I  do 
not  venture  to  enlarge  upon.  It  was  evident  that  the 
accumulations  had  less  variety  of  general  configura- 
tion as  they  neared  the  coast,  that  their  slopes  became 
less  sudden,  their  horizontalism  more  diffused,  and  that 
the  water  gorges  were  more  ramiform. 

Reaching  the  sea,  the  solid  ice-mass  terminated  ab- 
ruptly, presenting  an  escarped  face  with  nearly  verti- 
cal  fracture,  and  varying  in  perpendicular  height  ac- 
cording to  the  profile  of  the  protruding  mass.  The 
margin  which  defined  this  line  of  escarpment  was  clear 
and  decided ;  the  only  departure  from  its  regular  con- 
tinuity being  at  the  gorges  I  have  just  referred  to,  or 
at  cleanly-cut  chasms,  referable  apparently  to  disrup- 
tion. 

I  do  not  think  the  substance  of  the  Greenland  gla- 
cier differs  materially  from  that  of  the  Alpine.  A  frag- 
ment, examined  by  the  microscope,  exhibits  the  same 
vesicular  structure ;  and  it  breaks  into  numerous  pieces, 
whose  separation  is  determined  by  their  capillary  struc- 
ture. This  fragmentary  composition  of  the  glacier  ice 
enables  you  to  walk  on  it  without  slipping.  Its  color 
is  barely  translucent,  and  at  a  distance  as  opaque  as 
matte  silver.  It  is  only  where  cracks  or  chasms  have 
been  filled  by  waters  and  frozen  up  afterward,  that  we 
have  a  truly  transparent  ice. 

I  have  examined  the  neve,  which  forms  so  interest- 
ing a  feature  in  the  study  of  glaciers,  only  once  in  situ. 
This  was  at  the  small  glacier  north  of  76°,  where  this 
substance  occupied  the  upper  portion  of  its  trough. 
But  for  the  partial  cementation  of  its  particles,  and  a 
grain-like  character  which  could  be  detected  on  close 
examination,  I  should  have  regarded  it  as  a  mere  ac- 
cumulation  of  snow-drift. 

Ff 


450 


GLACIERS. 


H\ 


The  change  of  the  Arctic  snows  into  n6v6  or  firn 
might  he  the  suhj  ect  of  interesting  examination.  Even 
the  surface  drifts  of  our  winter  ice-floes  underwent  this 
granular  transformation  rapidly.  After  tossing  ahout 
as  a  dry  and  almost  impalpahle  powder  during  the 
long  Polar  winter,  the  returning  sun,  with  its  alterna- 
tions of  thaw  and  congelation,  developed  a  grain-like 
or  almost  headed  structure.  I  have  seen  these  crys- 
talline pellets  as  large  as  a  cherry-stone,  diminishing 
down  to  the  size  of  shot  or  mustard-seed. 

The  Polar  glacier,  as  may  he  seen  clearly  when  it 
has  taken  the  berg  form,  is  commonly  coated  over 
with  this  modified  snow,  and  its  valleys  and  minor 
depressions  are  often  filled  with  it  by  drift-action.  I 
have  noted  by  sections  strata  of  fifteen  and  twenty 
feet,  whose  composi'^ion  was  entirely  analogous  to  the 
firn  of  the  Alps.  It  may  have  been  by  observing  por- 
tions of  the  berg  like  this,  that  Professor  Forbes  was 
led  to  the  assertion  that  the  iceberg  is  composed  not 
of  true  ice,  but  of  neve. 

That  the  Polar  glaciers  obey  the  same  law  of  move- 
ment as  their  Alpine  brethren,  I  have  seen  no  reason 
to  doubt.  The  advance  of  the  glacial  faces  at  Jacobs' 
Harbor,  of  which  Mr.  Olrik  informed  me,  is  the  only 
direct  fact  which  I  can  add  to  those  already  noted  on 
this  subject.  But  the  very  circumstance  of  their  ofi"- 
casts,  the  bergs,  being  so  numerous,  seems  to  indicate 
a  continuously  protruding  influence.  It  may  be  that 
in  the  more  southern  settlements  of  Greenland  this 
advance  is  limited  by  atmospheric  causes ;  but  I  am 
strongly  inclined  to  believe  that  in  those  further  north, 
the  debacle  or  berg  disgorgement  is  the  most  powerful 
countervailing  agent. 

It  would  be  presumptuous,  with  my  very  meagre 


m^:^ 


BENDING     ICE. 


451 


data,  to  theorize  as  to  the  causes  of  this  progression, 
or  to  become  the  advocate  of  any  one  view  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  others.  But  I  confess  that  my  observations 
of  the  bergs,  and  of  the  ice-fields  of  our  winter-pack, 
point  to  the  viscous  or  gelid  flow  of  Professor  Forbes. 
The  definition  of  a  solid  is  at  best  comparative; 
and  I  have  had  abundant  proofs  that  ice,  even  at  very 
low  temperatures,  undergoes  molecular  changes  which 
modify  its  external  configuration  very  largely.  On 
the  20th  of  March,  while  we  were  imbedded  in  the 
floe,  with  a  temperature  many  degrees  below  zero,  one 
of  those  great  convulsions  called  hummocking  had 
thrown  up  a  table  eight  feet  in  thickness  by  twenty 
odd  in  width,  and  in  such  a  position  that  it  was  only 
sustained  by  masses  of  ice  at  its  two  extremities.  In 
the  month  of  May,  the  thermometer  never  having  risen 
in  the  interval  to  within  many  degrees  of  the  freezing- 
point,  I  saw  the  same  ice-table  completely  bent  down, 
its  centre  depressed  five  feet,  until  arrested  in  its  de- 
scent  by  a  new  support.* 


This  beautiful  illustration  of  the  semi-solid  charac- 
ter of  the  ice  during  the  depths  of  a  Polar  winter,  when 

•  See  the  dravings  of  this  ice-table  on  page  389. 


452 


GLACIERS. 


P 


:_%i5^*- 


its  tenacity  more  resembled  glass  or  granite  than  the 
familiar  ice  at  home,  was  not  a  solitary  one.  The  pre- 
ceding sketch  will  exhibit  an  equally  marked  curva- 
ture in  a  larger  mass,  where  the  gravitating  pressure 
was  applied  at  the  two  extremities. 

Contorted  ices,  natural  bridges,  and,  as  the  season 

advanced,  nodding,  pen- 
dulous, stalactitic  hum- 
mocks, were  not  unfre- 
quent.  These  had  a  dou- 
ble interest,  as  bearing 
not  only  on  the  plastici- 
ty of  ice,  but  on  the  in- 
fluence which  temperature  exerts  upon  its  condition  at 
points  below  that  of  congelation,  32°. 

I  have  already  described  the  only  glacier  which  I 
had  an  opportunity  of  surveying.  It  reminded  me  of 
La  Brenva ;  and  although  I  overlooked  the  ribboned 
structure,  not  having  seen  then  the  detailed  work  of 
Professor  Forbes,  I  recollect  tbpt  it  had  the  peculiar 
scalloped  shell  summit,  which  he  has  regarded  as  il- 
lustrative of  mechanical  advance. 

It  was  from  the  icebergs,  however,  that  formed  so 
characteristic  a  feature  of  the  scene  before  us,  that  we 
derived  our  best  idea  of  the  glaciers  from  which  they 
had  come.  To  the  eye  they  presented  almost  infinite 
diversity ;  but  it  required  very  little  generalization  to 
reduce  them  ail  to  a  few  simple  primary  forms. 

Thus  the  vertical  fracture  of  the  glacier,  which 
would  indicate  the  formation  of  a  berg  by  debacle, 
would  divide  the  mass  into  parallelopipedons  or  other 
rudely  symmetrical  solids ;  and  where  the  surface  of 
the  original  plateau  was  parallel  to  its  base,  the  de- 
tached mass  would  float  evenly  upon  the  waters,  a 


FORMS     OF     BERGS. 


453 


great  table-land  with  perpendicular  sides.  This  was 
the  most  frequent  form  of  the  bergs,  and  the  most  im- 
pressive. I  have  measured  some  that  were  thirteen 
hundred  yards  on  a  single  face. 

But  the  adjustment  of  the  glacier  to  the  country  on 
which  it  is  built  generally  prevents  such  a  symmet- 
rical equilibrium.  One  or  another  of  its  great  sides 
will  be  inclined  toward  the  water,  destroying  the  vert- 
ical character  of  the  rest,  and  giving  the  effect  of  a 
sloping  hill  rising  from  the  sea.  Over  bergs  of  this 
form,  and  they  also  were  very  numerous,  you  walked 
as  over  a  terrestrial  surface,  met  by  every  diversity  of 
configuration,  valleys,  gorges,  hills,  plains,  and  preci- 
pices. 

A  third  form,  so  abnormal  as  to  characterize  a  class, 
but  at  the  same  time  comparatively  rare,  was  that  of 
a  mass,  which,  probably  by  continued  avalanche  mo- 
tion, had  acquired  such  an  irregular  form,  such  a  dis- 
proportion, perhaps,  between  its  width  and  depth,  that 
its  centre  of  gravity,  as  it  fell,  was  not  within  the  sub- 
merged mass.  Its  equilibrium  was  therefore  uncer- 
tain, and  its  side  sometimes  what  had  been  at  first  its 
surface. 

With  some  exceptions,  the  different  forms  of  the 
berg  could  be  derived  from  these ;  their  subsequent 
changes  being  dependent  on  atmospheric  or  aqueous 
erosion,  or  both,  or  on  accidental  fractures,  and  on 
changes  of  equilibrium  consequent  on  the  others. 
These  last  were  productive  of  the  most  eccentric  diver- 
sities. Great  tongues,  which  had  become  cavernous 
under  the  action  of  the  waves,  would  rise  bristling  into 
the  upper  air;  and  gnarled  peaks,  stained  with  the 
silt  through  which  they  had  plowed,  cut  in  darkened 
pinnacles  against  the  sky. 


434 


DUIIOS. 


•'ri 


Wi 


•\" 


I 


i'.: 


I 


f    i 


..'.ii 


_«^^aEi; 


^Of'ft 


There  was  one  great  monster,  that  we  called  the 
Tower  of  Babel,  nearly  three  hundred  feet  high,  with 
a  spiral  stair-case  as  unsatisfactory  as  some  of  Martin's 
imaginings  of  infraterrene  architecture.  Another  was 
an  enormous  honey-combed  mass,  studded  all  over 
with  bowlders,  and  stained  with  syenitic  detritus. 


JH^^^BEfi^:-' 


^«*'^ 


But  curious  among  all  the  rest  was  the  berg,  of 
which  a  sketch  is  given  on  the  opposite  page.  It 
was  but  partially  overturned,  and  the  exposed  sur- 
face was  marked  all  over  by  circular  depressions,  ten 
inches  deep  and  a  foot  in  diameter,  so  close  together 
as  nearly  to  touch  at  their  upper  edges.  A  small- 
er berg  was   so  covered  with  these   spot-like  exca- 


»TUI>DLD     BERGS. 


455 


vations,  and  had  withal  so  strik- 
ing a  form,  that  it  could  have  no 
other  nickname  hut  the  Giraffe. 
In  my  efforts  to  arrive  at  the 
cause  of  this  strange  leprosy,  I 
once  only  found  the  hottoin  of  the 
cavities  filled  with  slimy  diotoma- 
ceous  life.  It  is  possible  that  a 
vital  action  had  determined  this 
local  thawing ;  but  its  symmet- 
rical character  still  remains  a  puzzle. 

It  was  very  interesting  to  follow  these  secondary 
forms  in  their  changes.  Nothing  can  be  more  impos- 
ing  than  the  rotation  of  a  berg.  I  have  often  watched 
one,  rocking  its  earth-stained  sides  in  steadily-deepen- 
ing curves,  as  if  to  gather  energy  for  some  desperate 
gymnastic  feat ;  and  then  turning  itself  slowly  over  in 
a  monster  somerset,  and  vibrating  as  its  head  rose  into 
the  new  element,  like  a  leviathan  shaking  the  water 
from  its  crest.  It  was  impossible  not  to  have  sugges- 
tions thrust  upon  me  of  their  agency  in  modifying  the 
geological  disposition  of  the  earth's  surface. 

We  were  in  an  archipelago  of  stranded  and  of  mov- 
ing bergs.     In  some  that  had  undergone  this  change 


of  equilibrium,  the  valleys  were  studded  with  irregu- 
larly angular  and  rounded  rocks,  and  a  detrital  paste 


456 


IMBEDDED     BERGS. 


,)  ' 


^ 


resembling  till.  In  such  cases,  the  deeply  imtedded 
position  of  the  larger  fragments  spoke  of  their  having 
been  there  from  the  original  structure  of  the  berg, 
while  che  paste  seemed  to  have  been  upturned  after- 
ward from  the  bottom  through  which  the  berg  had 
furrowed  its  way ;  the  occasional  excess  of  both  being 
due,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  to  atmospheric  action. 
The  preceding  sketch  shows  the  disposition  of  these 
fragments  sufficiently  well.  They  consisted  of  syen- 
ites, gneisses,  rounded  quartzes,  green-stones,  and  clay 
slates ;  in  fact,  of  all  the  character!  tic  rocks  of  our 
Plutonic  coast-line.  In  a  single  instance,  I  found  a 
piece  of  well-marked  actinolite,  eight  inches  in  diam- 
eter, surrounded  by  crumbled  chlorites  and  serpentines. 

In  the  primary  forms  of 
berg,  the  disposition  of  the 
.transported  material  did 
not  seem  to  be  determined 
by  any  law.  Sometimes, 
but  rarely,  I  could  follow 
moraine  traces,  or  rather 
lines  indicating  deposits 
from  contiguous  cliffs ;  but 
generally  the  fragment 
seemed   to   be    cemented 


/  ' 


CRYSTALLODROMES. 


457 


i  I 

I 


into  the  glacier  from  the  talus  of  some  descending  slope. 
I  can  not  recall  a  case  in  which  such  fragments  had 
the  strictly  angular  character  that  belongs  to  a  recent 
fracture.  They  were  either  complete  bowlders,  or  par- 
tially rounded,  as  in  the  two  preceding  sketches. 

The  influences  of  the  berg 
as  a  raft  in  the  translation 
of  masses  of  rock,  with  their 
accompanying  paste,  may  be 
inferred  to  some  extent  from 
the  facts  I  have  thus  hastily 
thrown  together.  Of  near- 
ly five  thousand  bergs  which 
I  have  seen,  there  was,  per- 
haps, not  one  that  did  not 
contain  fragmentary  rock.  A  walk  over  the  berg 
would  disclose  them,  either  clinging  partially  imbed- 
ded in  their  slopes,  or  in  the  form  of  pebbles  and  still 
smaller  fragments,  penetrating  in  cylindrical  cavities 
deep  into  the  substance  of  the  berg. 


/'' 


This  form  of  deposit  was  even  more  marked  than  it 
seems  to  have  been  in  the  glaciers  of  the  Alps.     The 

- ^«^   -— -^y-^——--—  constant  daylight,  without  in- 

«"»__,^  "^         terruption  of  solar  influence, 

'~~~  and  the  absence  of  radiation 

during  the  night,  will  explain  this.     I  have  seen  the 

surface  of  a  berg  completely  covered,  for  perhaps  a 


1 1 


i 


ft 


!  •  il' 


if 
III 


I 


458 


BERGS. 


.'"iK 


coupl«  of  acres,  with  the  orifices  of  these  perforating 
crystallodromes. 

We  did  not  often  meet  with  the  pinna- 
cled  character,  which  is  so  frequent  in  the 
Alps ;  a  fact  which  may  be  due,  perhaps, 
to  the  absence  of  the  alternate  freezing  and 
thawing  which  attend  the  alternation  of  day 
and  night. 

When  the  berg  was  nearly  melted  down  to  the  wa- 
ter's edge,  the  accumulation  was  more  apparent,  and 
the  arrangement  of  drift  upon  its  surface  resembled 
that  which  the  sketches  I  subjoin  were  intended  to 
indicate. 


\ 


?.;■ 


'.  \ 


The  berg  is  beyond  all  doubt  a  most  important 
agent  in  modifying  the  soundings  upon  the  coast.  The 
grounded  bergs  off  Disco  are  known  to  leave  troughs, 
plowed  by  their  projecting  tongues,  as  they  float  and 
ground  with  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  tides.  Where  the 
bottom  is  of  mud  and  till,  as  is  the  case  on  the  west 
coast  generally,  this  action  must  be  very  marked ;  for 
on  a  berg  I  surveyed  trigonometrically  in  July,  which 
had  grounded  in  soundings  of  five  hundred  and  twen- 
ty feet,  the  great  tap-root  that  anchored  it  to  the  bot- 
tom admitted  of  an  easy  rotation,  and  the  berg  swung 
upon  its  axis  with  each  change  of  the  tide.  That 
such  great  tongues,  though  irregular  in  their  shape, 
do  in  fact  rock  and  rotate  with  the  movements  of 
the  berg,  might  be  inferred,  indeed,  from  the  facettes 
that  are  worn  on  the  imbedded  material ;  many  of 


THEIR     GEOLOGICAL     INFLUENCES. 


459 


which  are  disposed  about  a  convexity  of  uniform  curv- 
ature. 

We  are  to  remember  besides,  in  considering  the  ge- 
ological eccentricities  which  are  to  be  referred  to  the 
action  of  icebergs,  the  immense  quantities  of  foreign 
material  which  I  have  spoken  of  as  discoloring  or  stain- 
ing so  many  of  the  bergs  of  Omenak,  Ovinde,  and 
Melville  Bay.  These  ice-masses  are  of  many  millions 
of  tons,  all  of  them  bearing  the  elements  of  gneissoid 
rocks,  to  be  deposited  in  distant  localities.  A  refer- 
ence to  my  current  chart  will  show  that  they  pass,  in 
the  first  instance,  toward  the  north,  and,  descending 
along  the  western  coast,  perform  the  entire  circuit  of 
the  bay.  The  extensive  reaches  of  shoals,  which  are 
so  marked  a  feature  of  this  coast  from  Pond  Bay  to 
Cape  Kater,  may  be  due  to  this  character  of  bergdrift. 
The  islands  and  shallows  about  the  mouth  of  Jones's 
Sound  must,  I  suppose,  be  referred  to  it  also. 


V/, 


i.  /•■-, 


^ 


BOWLCEHS  IN   ICEBERO. 


my 


AMO.no  the  BERQS,  MELVILLE  BAY. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 


I 


I  RETURN  from  this  long  digression  to  my  narrative. 

In  the  night  of  the  15th  of  July  a  mist  cleared  away 
that  had  inclosed  us  for  some  days,  and  the  atmosphere 
had  the  pellucid  clearness  of  the  Tropics  after  a  rain. 
We  then  saw  how  completely  surrounded  we  were  by 
bergs.  We  had  made  fast,  on  the  shore  side,  to  one 
of  magisterial  proportions,  that  had  anchored  itself  in 
the  floe.  As  we  looked  coastward,  others  still  closer 
in  were  so  piled  up  against  the  land  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  separate  them:  a  jagged  wall  of  ice  con- 
trasting with  the  hills  beyond  was  all  that  could  be 
seen.  To  seaward,  I  counted  seventy- three  within  the 
visual  angle. 

As  the  tide  ebbed,  the  same  phenomena  of  drift  whicli 
had  startled  us  last  year  in  Melville  Bay  were  renew- 
ed. The  floes  were  choked  in  around  us,  so  as  to  pre- 
vent the  possibility  of  warping  from  our  position ;  and 


;"       I 


MARCH    OF    THE     BERGS. 


461 


pre- 
aiid 


the  kingly  bergs  began  their  impressive  march.  Our 
anchorage  seemed  to  be  a  fixed  centre,  influencing  the 
general  tidal  streams.  The  set  of  the  surface  ice  was 
rapid  to  the  south ;  but  where  it  struck  against  our 
island  safeguard,  the  counter-stream  worked  its  way 
toward  the  shore. 

In  the  midst  of  this  combination  of  floe-movements, 
the  tide  changed,  and  the  inshore  bergs  began  to  bear 
down  upon  us,  moving  steadily  against  the  surface 
current,  and  nearly  against  the  wind.  One  of  these, 
of  quadrangular  form,  with  a  back  like  a  table-land, 
and  in  bulk  more  than  equal  to  two  such  as  our  own, 
advanced  from  the  recesses  of  the  land  at  the  rate  of 
a  knot  an  hour,  crumbling  all  opposing  floes  before  it. 
Mr.  Murdaugh  and  myself  had  accomplished  a  some- 
what arduous  journey  over  the  ice  to  the  Prince  Al- 
bert. We  returned  just  in  time  to  see  the  two  bergs 
meet,  and  our  little  vessels  crushed  to  atoms  in  their 
embrace.  It  was  a  sight  to  make  "  the  bravest  hold 
his  breath ;"  more  fearful  by  much  than  any  whose 
peril  we  had  shared.  But  we  doubled  a  projecting 
crag ;  and  it  was  past.  Just  as  the  drifting  berg  was 
about  impinging  on  the  other,  it  yielded  a  very  little  to 
some  inexplicable  counter-drift ;  moved  slowly  round 
on  its  axis  to  the  northward ;  and,  passing  within  fifty 
yards  of  the  brigs,  continued  its  majestic  progress  di- 
rectly in  the  wind's  eye.  It  was  a  narrow  escape :  the 
Rescue  was  heeled  over  considerably  by  the  floes  which 
were  forced  in  upon  her,  driving  in  her  port  bulwarks 
and  demolishing  her  monkey-rail. 

The  same  fearful  scene  was  renewed  the  next  day. 
A  second  quadrangle  stood  out  from  the  shore  at  the 
same  rate  as  the  other,  and  had  approached  within 
short  biscuit-cast,  when  a  deep,  protruding  tongue,  al- 


iigii>ttiifWBi«MiliMlj^ 


m 


li 


:'     ill 


:i 


;  I 


s|  i 

i'i 


»! 


11 


'ft 
1 


r 


462 


THE     SEASON    GOING. 


together  invisible  to  us,  opposed  itself  against  our  ad- 
vancing enemy,  and  with  a  shock  that  vibrated  to  our 
very  centre  brought  him  up.  Why  does  not  the  at- 
traction of  these  masses  bring  and  retain  them  in  ap- 
position ?  Collisions  between  bergs  are  certainly  rare ; 
and  my  own  experience,  corroborated  by  the  results  of 
much  inquiry  among  the  Greenlanders  and  the  fisher- 
men, seems  to  say  that  a  union  between  two  bergs, 
except  when  one  is  aground — an  exception  on  which 
I  lay  some  stress — is  almost  unknown. 

A  few  days  after  the  scene  I  have  described,  we 
neared  our  hated  landmark  of  last  season,  the  Devil's 
Thumb.  But  here  the  leads  closed ;  and  our  labyrinth 
of  bergs  attended  us  still,  clogging  our  way,  and  wea- 
rying us  with  their  monotony.  Our  commander  had 
but  one  thought,  and  we  all  sympathized  in  it — how 
could  our  little  squadron  regain  its  position  at  the 
searching  grounds?  We  had  otherwise  no  lack  of 
incidents.  There  were  parhelia,  intricate  ones,  with 
six  solar  images  and  ercentric  circles  of  light,  one  of 
which  had  its  circumference  passing  through  the  sun. 
And  we  had  bear  hunts  now  and  then  of  mothers  and 
cubs  together ;  and  sometimes  we  shot  r.t  a  flock  of 
birds. 

But  the  spirit  of  the  hunt  had  left  us.  We  were 
close  upon  the  middle  of  August.  Less  than  four 
weeks  remained  for  us  to  get  rid  of  this  vexatious  en- 
tanglement, press  on  through  Lancaster  Sound,  com- 
plete our  explorations  in  Wellington  Channel,  and  re- 
turn to  the  open  water  of  the  bay.  It  was  before  the 
middle  of  September  that  we  had  been  frozen  in  last 
year.  And  here  we  were  in  a  perfect  ice-trap,  unable 
to  win  an  inch  of  progress. 

We  were  without  the  Albert  too.     As  long  ago  as 


GOOD-BY     TO     THE     ALBERT. 


463 


ro  as 


the  fifth,  her  good  folks  had  determined  to  make  south, 
despairing  of  success  in  a  northward  effort ;  and  on  the 
eleventh,  while  we  were  yet  attached  to  the  old  land- 
floe,  she  found  her  way  to  an  open  lead,  and  disap- 
peared on  the  thirteenth.  We  could  hardly  talk  of 
the  regrets  we  all  felt  at  losing  them.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  for  days  after  I  could  hear  their  broken- 
hearted little  hand-organ  grinding  "  The  Garb  of  Old 
Gael ;"  and  their  gifts  to  me,  Mr.  Kennedy's  pocket 
Bible,  Bellot's  French  treatises.  Cowrie's  Shetland 
woolens,  and  Hepburn's  gloves — it  quite  dispirited  me 
to  look  at  them. 


aoOD-BY   TO  THE   PRINCE  ALBERT,   MELVILLE  BAY. 

We  perhaps  thought  of  their  departure  the  more, 
because  it  implied  something  of  uncertainty  as  to  our 
own  fate.  They  had  avowedly  left  us,  fearless  and 
enterprising  as  they  were,  to  escape  from  hazards  that 
we  were  continuing  to  brave.     Mr.  Leask,  their  vet- 


m 


I'l         w 


,■■>  -f 


i' 


464 


CRISIS     APPROACHING. 


eran  ice-master,  thought,  when  he  left  us,  that  if  we 
followed  the  northern  leads  there  was  almost  a  cer- 
tainty of  our  heing  caught,  like  the  Swan,  and  the 
York,  and  a  host  of  others  before  us.  A  pleasant  neigh- 
borhood, truly !  Here  perished  the  ships  of  '47.  Here 
the  North  Star  was  beset  in  '48 ;  hereabout,  the  year 
before  last,  the  Lady  Jane,  and  the  Superior,  and  the 
Prince  of  Wales ;  and,  coming  to  our  own  experience 
of  last  year,  here  it  was,  in  this  very  devil's  hole, 
that  we  wore  out  our  three  weeks'  imprisonment. 

Moreover,  the  season  was  more  advanced  than  last 
year's  had  been.  The  thermometer,  which  stood  at 
noon  in  the  shade  at  54°,  sunk  in  the  evening  hours 
to  30°.  At  such  a  temperature  the  ice  forms  rapidly 
on  the  deeply  chilled  water,  and  the  day  sun  barely 
melts  it.  We  began  to  observe  too  flocks  of  the  little 
Auk  streaming  south,  as  if  to  harbinger  a  change  of 
season.  It  was  evident  that  a  very  few  days  must 
decide  where  we  should  pass  the  approaching  winter. 

The  crisis  came  soon  enough.  My  journal  is  prolix 
throughout  this  period ;  but  I  venture  to  give  it  as  it 
stands.    I  begin  with  the  eleventh  of  the  month. 

"August  11,  Monday.  The  wind  has  been  nearly  all 
day  more  or  less  from  the  northward.  Now,  though 
almost  calm,  it  is  from  the  eastern  or  shore  side,  ac- 
companied by  weather  sunny  and  beautiful. 

"  We  are  still  attached  to  the  old  land-floe.  This 
so-called  land-ice  is  rather  a  huge  field,  hentjmed  in 
by  bergs,  so  as  to  be  immovable.  It  is,  however,  young 
and  frail,  not  exceeding  eighteen  inches  in  thickness, 
and  perforated  with  water-pools,  cracks,  and  seal-holes. 
It  is  so  rotten  that  marginal  pieces  are  continually 
breaking  off,  and  carried  into  the  chaos  of  floating 
drift  outside.    Were  we  to  share  the  same  chance,  we 


THE     BERGS     MOVING. 


465 


as  it 


rly  all 
lough 
le,  ac- 


This 

[ed  in 

roung 

:ness, 

loles. 
dually 
[ating 
be,  we 


must  be  involved  helplessly  in  floating  skreed,  adrift, 
and  at  the  mercy  of  the  winds  and  currents.  As  our 
protecting  floe  gives  way,  therefore,  men  walk  over 
the  liberated  tables,  and  plant  our  ice-hooks  further 
off"  in  the  part  that  remains  solid.  This  process  is  go- 
ing on  without  intermission  ;  so  that  now  (12  o'clock 
M.)  we  have  a  hundred  yards  of  cable  out  ahead  and 
astern.  We  are  surrounded  by  floes,  and  the  channel 
outside  is  a  compacted  surface  of  floating  rubbish. 

"  As  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  the  sea,  and,  by  refrac- 
tion, the  air,  is  studded  with  bergs,  apparently  concen- 
tering about  our  anchorage.  Astern  of  us,  stretching 
to  the  westward,  are  five,  so  nearly  abreast  as  to  re- 
semble one  ragged  mountain  precipice.  There  is  not 
one  of  these  smaller  than  our  Washington  Capitol.; 
and  one  of  them  would  fill  the  Capitol  square.  Di- 
rectly ahead,  only  a  hundred  and  fifteen  yards  off",  is 
a  huge  one,  black,  gnarled,  water- worn,  and  serrated 
with  deep  chasms ;  and  streams  of  melted  snow  are 
pouring  down  in  noisy  cascades  along  its  gullies.  This 
berg  is  fast  in  the  anchoring  ice ;  but  eery  now  and 
then  it  breaks  off"  in  great  masses  with  a  report  like 
artillery.  Between  it  and  the  nearest  astern  of  us  the 
distance  is  about  three  hundred  yards.  On  one  side 
we  have  the  equivalent  of  a  rock-bound  mountain 
coast :  every  where  else  a  phalanx  of  serried  bergs. 

"  2  P.M.  The  bergs  are  in  motion  again,  and  bear- 
ing for  us. 

^'August  12,  Tuesday.  The  berg  ahead  still  holds 
its  anchorage.  It  is  an  amorphous  mass,  so  worn  that 
it  must  have  been  sorely  wrought  before  its  release 
from  the  glacier.  Its  summit  is  a  rolling  country, 
stained  with  earth  and  rocks:  you  can  walk  up  and 
down  hill  over  it  for  nearly  a  mile  in  a  single  line. 

.     Gg 


'i'*!%.'^^ 


466 


A    DRIFTING     ICE-Br.VCH. 


"About  one  o'clock  to-day,  a  fragment  about  as 
large  as  Independence  Hall  fell  from  it  into  the  ice- 
sea  below.  The  noise  had  not  the  usual  sharp,  reverb- 
erating character  of  these  disruptions ;  but  the  effects 
of  the  avalanche  upon  the  field  into  which  it  fell  were 
very  striking.  At  first,  from  the  centre  of  turmoil 
came  a  circling  series  of  large  undulations  clothed  in 
foam.  Next  the  floating  rubbish  began  to  roll  in  prop- 
agated waves  ;  and  these,  passing  our  brig,  extended 
themselves  under  the  margin  of  the  fast  floe,  breaking 
it  up,  and  still  expanding  in  one  ridge  beyond  another 
till  they  disappeared  in  the  distance.  We  counted  at 
least  five  wave  circles  in  the  ice-field  at  one  time.  It 
reminded  me  of  our  scene  in  the  pack  on  the  fifth  of 
June. 

^^ August  15,  Friday.  The  floe  we  have  been  fasten- 
ed to  so  long  still  holds  together,  though  traversed  by 
innumerable  cracks.  The  margin  is  constantly  break- 
ing away ;  but  our  whale  lines  are  laid  far  out,  and  as 
one  comes  away  we  warp  closer  in  by  the  others. 

"  This  has  kept  us  from  drifting,  but  it  has  sur- 
rounded us  with  the  off-shed  fragments  of  the  floes. 
These  are  already  recemented  about  us,  though  con- 
stantly cracking  and  breaking  away  by  the  varying 
pressures;  and  outside  of  them  the  loose  floes  are  drift- 
ing by,  morning,  noon,  and  night,  like  the  foam-cov- 
ered surface  of  a  millrace  when  the  ice  gives  way  in 
a  spring  freshet.  We  may  be  said  to  be  moored  to 
an  uncertain  shore,  a  drifting  beach  of  ice ;  while  on 
every  side,  striving  to  tear  us  from  this  faithless  anch- 
orage, are  the  unquiet,  grinding  floes.  But  the  bergs ! 
it  seems  almost  profanity  to  speak  of  them:  where  are 
they? 

"  I  have  compared  the  outside  drift  to  the  foam  of 


_.... 

'-■w 

-*; 

* 

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■  -'■  >  : 

*  , 

.<y 

u 

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il  - 


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c  i 


C        I 


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lil 


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jH 

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^   .!• 

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aI 

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» '111 

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■*■■ 

:  III 


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ll 

166 


^    M«iF1:^^«   iCK-ii«*t;  **- 


'*At«)at  on©  o'fjlock  ta.day,  a  iiii^'^*w»t  about  as 
ItJi^u  n.i  liideptiiKl'Juc.o  lltfcU.  leii  iVoui  i  iiiiu  tlie  ice« 
ma  balow.  The  ii*i,>-o  hsul  rxot  iUe  usuaj.  4iii.*is  reverb- 
'^rating  character  of  iu^Kw  dUrupti\>Ui5 ;  but  liie  wfl'ecU 
of  the  avalanche  !'j»'>u  iu«  iieid  iutv  wimauit  i"<^U  vvore 
very  strikutg.  \%  fir^t,  iVom  t!--^  .-nftiT  rri'  turinoil 
came  a  circUiii^  s^nea  t*!  larj^e  «;.         •  la 

ibaiM.  Next  tho  il-jau»<i  tm  p'x^^  h  h^^mi  fx>  r^U  tu  pft/|>« 
agated  wave?j ;  aiid  thv  if  our  bri>(,  H.xieu»iT<i 

ihemticlvc.-'  under  Uie  i»u*{j^*«  «J  the  liist  tloe,  breaking 
it  up,  and  jjiili  expuunii,  ■  ^*.  '.'ue  nd^e  bc)und  another 
tjil  ti ley  disappear <.■■  ■  Jistance.  W'^e  (jounLcd  at 
leatt  live  wave  circk*  ui  tiie  i<;e-li'ihl  i\t  one  tuue,  it 
reminded  me  otoiu  «cene  in  the  pack  on  tiie  lilth  of 
-hme.  A 

*At'gu4i  15>  fc'a^kij.  1^  i*  •'.  *•!?  i*'**'*?  hmn  fanten- 
Mjo  11*5  ii»x^g  »«':5ii  tt*^»  t«.»g»>».i»t«i»  tlwHigk  travfei*5^l  fif 

one  con*«!»i  ♦*'i»^'  V--    ■  t^**^  »!W'*tsMi«ifc> 

"  Thife  bus  kept  it^  inai**  »i;*#i»nj(.  oiH  ii  i'j*fi  HitP 
rounded  u.s  wjth  the  ofl-shed  trai^nieats  of  the  floe«. 
These  are  alrea.dy  receineiittd  about  as,  tiiou|yrh  con- 
stantly cracking  aud  breakjDg  avvav  by  the  varyin*? 
pre.iJjUK^^;  and  (.tutside  *A  ^htua.  tlie  Itio^e  ii(i(>j<  are  driiV- 
ing  ]>y»  morning,  noon,  and  night,  like  ih^^  ilam-cov- 
vvtj^  mnim:^  of  a  tndiis«ww«  'wiw,.i,..  ikt^.  t^^^p^m  way  in 
■':  ttiitiiKg  umhift,  V»  *;  B?»)  H^  >s*t»«t  !>  K^  ittoored  to 
in  it.<^i«iTMMU  sh«>r«»,  4t  driJting  bti&iU;  4*1  i<v?  -,  while  on 
ev«0  j&*«ie,  striving  vo  tear  us  fronn  thi>>  laiihless  auch- 
f'V'i^»,.$j>,'.  Ui*  uiA<|uiet,  {i^rindiiig  does.  Itut  tiie  berifs  ! 
it  isewt^j4?*l^!i4|P*h*iUV  V^  Sh|.»eak  of  them:  wiieie  are 
they-t 

'  I  hiivH  Mi*^^^^**^^  \Xka  siUiaido  diift  to  tlie  ibaui  of 


itouv  ay 

tiie  ico- 

revftcb- 

i4i  wore 
rurmoil 

Hi  pxt/|>- 

>reaki)ig 

uuotliei" 

uiiLod  tit 

IlU»!!.       it 

liflli  of 
it  iaateu- 

10  l)o«s. 
i^4i  con- 
vary  in  «r 
aiB  driiV- 

v/ay  ill 
oore<i  tM 

iiile  OH 
\ss  utich- 
le  borjfs ! 
here  are 


ioa 


\n  of 


n 


:o 

c 
r 
m 

=i  — 
2-  O 
5     2 


r-   O 


CO 


41 'I, 


"?.?•  W^'..  ■'''! 


PROCESSION    OF     THE     BERGS. 


467 


a  millrace.  The  comparison  was  a  wretched  one. 
Imagine  the  horizon  a  great  sea,  visible  here  and  there 
at  the  end  of  long  marble  vistas,  one  unbroken  but 
moving  whiteness.  Let  that  sea  be  choked  with  jag- 
ged mountains,  pale  and  chalky,  but  moving  too.  It 
is  the  panorama  that  surrounds  us.  They  are  not  the 
same  bergs  that  girded  us  a  week  ago.  It  is  a  con- 
stant series :  as  fast  as  one  column  passes  another  takes 
its  place.  At  this  moment,  looking  to  the  north,  I  rec- 
ognize the  terraces  of  a  Baby  Ionic  tower,  just  losing 
itself  behind  the  fast  bergs  to  seaward.  Yesterday 
that  same  berg  emerged  from  the  solid  ice-mountain 
to  the  southward.  Then  it  was  the  last  of  a  long  cav- 
alcade ;  but  they  have  all  gone,  and  another  train  is 
now  following  it,  so  continuous  and  compact  that  I 
sometimes  can  not  see  the  horizon.  The  procession, 
like  a  phantasmagorial  dream  of  some  giant  theatre, 
glides  slowly  in  from  the  left,  passes  across  the  front, 
and  is  lost  far  back  to  the  right. 

"  Night  before  last,  standing  on  the  fast  floe,  I 
counted,  between  the  two  anchored  bergs  that  serve 
as  framings  of  the  picture,  thirty-two  icebergs  in  a 
well-marshaled  group.  Standing  afterward  on  the 
summit  of  our  northern  buttress,  I  counted  two  hund- 
red and  eighty,  the  glacier  terminating  the  eastern 
view.  Most  of  these  bergs  were  above  the  standard 
height  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet ;  some  exceeded 
three  hundred ;  few  were  less  than  one  hundred. 

"We  see  no  open  water;  but  it  is  designated  clearly 
by  a  dark  sky,  something  between  the  bistre  of  the 
frost  smoke  and  the  indigo  of  our  thunder  clouds  at 
home.  The  tint  is  deepest  at  the  horizon,  and  fading 
as  it  ascends.  We  have  seen  these  signs  of  water  for 
the  last  four  days.     We  confidently  hope  the  south- 


mm 


1  ' 


468 


BERG    FRACTURE. 


easterly  winds  are  driving  the  pack  to  the  northward, 
for  both  the  skreed  drift  and  the  bergs  seem  to  have 
a  northwesterly  trend.  It  is  probable  that  the  leads 
may  not  be  more  than  the  third  of  a  mile  from  us. 
We  have  been  trying  to  warp  toward  them ;  but,  after 
much  hard  labor,  have  moved  not  quite  a  hundred 
yards. 

^''August  16,  Saturday.  Our  position  is  the  same  as 
yesterday,  except  that  we  are  a  day  older  in  it.  The 
bergs  keep  the  same  curved  screen  of  bristling  wall 
to  seaward ;  and  to  the  east,  the  glacier,  with  its  black 
knobs  of  protruding  mountain,  shows  dimly  through 
the  mist.  The  wind  is  from  the  northward  and  east- 
ward ;  but  we  are  so  girded  in  that  our  floes  can  not 
relax.  Outside,  to  the  south,  whenever  a  momentary 
opening  permits  a  glimpse  beyond,  we  have  leads  and 
a  water-sky. 

"  It  is  evident  now  that  our  berth  here  is  a  horse- 
shoe indentation,  the  loose  ice  of  which  is  hemmed  in 
by  a  rapidly  changing  army  of  bergs.  Last  night,  or, 
to  speak  more  accurately,  this  morning,  though  the 
wind  was  off-shore  from  the  east,  we  experienced  some 
tolerable  nipping :  the  *  young  puppies '  were  whining 
half  the  night.  Under  the  circumstances,  especially 
as  the  fast  floe  seems  to  yield  very  little,  our  captain 
has  determined  to  try  the  warps  again.  The  brig's 
head  is  pointed  into  the  drift,  and  we  are  trying  to 
spring  her  past  the  loose  ice. 

"  9  P.M.  While  three  men  were  out  on  a  low  berg 
this  morning  warping,  one  of  them.  Dunning,  struck 
his  ice-chisel  against  the  mass.  It  parted  instantly, 
with  a  short,  sharp  crack ;  one  fragment  sinking  for  a 
time  nearly  below  the  skreed,  with  two  of  the  men 
on  it.    They  had  some  difliculty  in  keeping  their  foot- 


BERG    FRACTURE. 


469 


hold,  as  it  rose,  and  fell,  and  rocked  about  with  them ; 
but  they  managed  to  do  it.  Dunning  was  left  on  the 
other  side :  it  see-sawed  with  him  a  good  deal,  but  he 
jumped  for  it  safely. 

"  The  ice  seems  to  relax  morning  and  evening,  prob- 
ably under  tidal  influence.  We  have  made  three 
ship's  lengths  to-day,  and  are  now  clear  of  the  floe 
that  has  been  shielding  us.  The  bergs  are  still  keep- 
ing up  their  interminable  procession,  some  of  them 
making  sublime  evolutions  as  they  pass.  One  to-day 
broke  right  before  us  in  a  vertical  disruption,  and  rolled 
away  in  two  nearly  equal  masses.  Another  seemed 
to  stop  to  show  us  how  he  could  oscillate,  and  then 
gracefully  turned  himself  upside  down  and  floated 
away. 

"  10  P.M.  The  thermometer  has  got  up  to  36°,  and 
the  air  is  transparent  again.  The  sun  is  shining  out, 
and  the  glacier  glitters  at  its  fractured  face  like  satin 
spar  and  diamonds. 

"August  17,  Sunday.  The  same  revolving  wall  of 
bergs  meets  us  to  the  west,  but  the  glacier  on  the  other 
side  is  partially  hidden  by  a  new  procession  inshore. 
While  profaning  the  day  by  an  attempt  to  sketch  these 
sublime  monuments  of  creative  power  in  my  drawing- 
book,  I  was  interrupted  by  a  heavy  undulation,  roll- 
ing under  the  brig,  and  passing  on  to  th-  iolid  inshore 
floe.  It  was  followed  by  a  number  of  others,  coming 
in  quick  succession,  and  breaking  up  the  floe  drift  in 
every  direction.  The  action  continued  for  some  min- 
utes. It  must  have  been  caused  by  some  very  large 
and  probably  irregular  berg  overturning  at  a  distance ; 
but  it  was  without  noise,  and  indeed  without  premo- 
nition of  any  sort.  The  direction  of  the  wave  where 
it  struck  us  was  from  the  northwest.     Up  to  this  mo- 


1 

It 

m  ■  '' 

n  I 
'I  k 

,.'t         .: 

ir  i!  -I 


«!;  r 


470 


THE     OPENING. 


ment,  all  the  heavy  heaving  and  warping  of  to-day 
had  been  without  any  effect.  Now  the  floes  separated 
as  if  by  magic:  there  was  relaxation  every  where;  and 
we  made  at  least  two  hundred  yards  before  the  ice 
closed  again. 

"  This  afternoon,  the  captain,  with  Murdaugh  and 
myself,  walked  and  climbed  over  this  same  ice,  to 
make  a  reconnoissance  of  the  region  beyond  the  bergs. 
By  the  aid  of  boat-hooks  and  some  slippery  jumping 
we  achieved  it,  and  were  at  last  able  to  climb  one  of 
the  imprisoning  bergs,  and  look  from  its  crest  to  the 
other  side. 

"It  was  a  sermon  such  as  uninspired  man  has  never 
preached.  There,  there,  far  down  below  us,  there  was 
the  open  water,  stretching  wide  away  to  the  south ; 
placid  and  bright,  bearing  on  its  glazed  surface  fleets 
of  bergs  and  rafts  of  floes,  but  open  water  still ;  and 
yet  further  on,  the  unbroken  water-sky.  Our  little 
brig  was  under  us,  the  tiny  fretwork  of  her  spars  traced 
clean  and  sharp  against  the  arena  of  ice ;  but,  thank 
God !  she  is  nearing  the  gates  of  her  prison-house.  De 
Haven  was  right.  One  quarter  of  a  mile !  Now,  lads, 
for  the  warps  again ! 

"  Midnight.  We  are  out :  at  ten  minutes  past  eleven 
we  shipped  our  rudder,  the  first  time  in  three  weeks ; 
and  made  sail,  the  first  time  since  the  26th  of  July. 

"  We  owe  it  all  to  a  relaxation  of  the  floes.  The 
wind  was  from  the  northward :  the  bergs  that  hemmed 
in  the  loose  drift  around  us  yielded  a  little  toward  the 
west,  and  the  skreed  began  to  separate.  The  main- 
brace  was  spliced ;  springs  took  the  place  of  warps ; 
and  the  men  went  gallantly  to  their  work.  They 
were  as  anxious  to  get  out  as  any  of  us. 

"At  last  we  reached  an  opening :  two  immense 


THE     ESCAPE 


471 


bergs,  overhanging  and  ragged ;  and  down  toward  the 
water-line,  an  opening  between  them  like  a  gateway. 
Shall  we  pass  ?  We  have  seen  so  many  disruptions, 
and  capsizings,  and  accidents  of  all  sorts  in  this  work 
of  anchor-planting :  sometimes  a  mere  breath  brings 
down  masses  that  would  bury  half  a  dozen  such  ves- 
sels as  ours ;  and  these  bergs  are  so  water- washed  and 
pendulous.  Murdaugh  waited  for  the  order.  De  Ha- 
ven gave  it ;  and,  in  deep  silence,  we  passed  the  Gades 
of  the  Devil's  Trap. 

^^ August  19,  Tuesday.  The  Rescue  is  close  astern 
of  us:  she  got  through  about  noon  yesterday.  Our 
commodore  has  resolved  on  an  immediate  return  to 
the  United  States." 

The  game  had  been  played  out  fairly.  Lancaster 
Sound  was  out  of  the  question ;  and  for  our  scurvy- 
riddled  crew,  a  nine  months'  winter  in  the  ice  of 
North  Baffin  would  have  been  disastrous. 


WW  'M 


I 


tc 


I 


?^ 


i  s 


CHAPTER  L. 

After  our  escape  from  the  congregated  bergs,  we 
sailed  to  one  at  a  little  distance,  and  filled  our  water- 
casks.  The  berg  crumbled  and  fell  while  we  were  do- 
ing so,  but  nobody  was  hurt ;  and  in  two  days  more, 
after  a  closing  skirmish  with  the  ice-pack,  we  headed 
homeward.  On  the  twentieth  we  made  our  last  sal- 
utation to  the  Devil's  Thumb ;  and  on  the  twenty- 
third,  in  the  evening,  we  were  near  enough  to  Upper- 
navik  for  a  little  boating  party  of  us  to  make  it  a  visit. 

With  the  exception  of  Kangiartsoak,  this  is  the 
most  northern  of  the  Danish  settlements.  Its  latitude 
is  72°  47^,  three  hundred  and  seventy  miles  within  the 
Arctic  circle.  But  reaching  it,  we  felt  as  if  we  had 
renewed  our  communication  with  the  world ;  for  here, 
once  in  every  year,  comes  the  solitary  trader  from  Co- 
penhagen. We  had  become  so  familiar  with  the  drear- 
iness of  Greenland,  that  the  glaring  red  gables  of  the 


THE     governor's     MANSION. 


473 


three  houses,  and  the  white  curiosity,  which  stood  for 
a  steeple  above  the  church,  were  absolutely  cheering ; 
and  we  landed,  poor  souls !  after  our  twelve  miles' 
row,  with  hearts  as  elate  as  ever  frolicked  among  the 
orange-groves  of  Brazil  or  the  cocoa-palms  of  the  East- 
ern Pacific. 

Disappointment  once  more !  The  governor  had  gone 
to  Proven ;  the  Danish  ship  had  gone  to  Proven ;  the 
prie  i  ad  gone  to  Proven.  But  the  gentler  sex  re- 
maineu.  The  governor's  lady  gave  us  a  kindly  wel- 
come, and  extended  to  us  all  the  hospitalities  of  his 
mansion. 

The  mansion  was  far 
from  picturesque.  It  was 
a  square  block  of  heavy 
timber,  running  into  a 
high-peak  gable.  The 
roof  was  of  tarred  can- 
vas, laid  over  boards: 
the  wooden  walls  coated 
with  tar,  and  painted  a  glowing  red.  A  little  paling, 
white  and  garden-like,  inclosed  about  ten  feet  of  pre- 
pared soil,  covered  with  heavy  glass  frames;  under 
which,  in  spite  of  the  hoar-frost  that  gathered  on  them, 
we  could  detect  a  few  bunches  of  crucifers,  green  rad- 
ishes, and  turnip-tops.  It  was  the  garden,  the  dis- 
tinctive appendage  of  the  governor's  residence. 

Inside  the  house — it  is  the  type  of  those  at  Disco 
and  Proven — you  pass  by  a  narrow-boarded  vestibule 
to  a  parlor.  This  parlor,  a  room  of  dignified  consider- 
ation, is  twelve  feet  long  by  eleven :  beyond  it,  a  door 
opens  to  display  the  suite,  a  second  room,  the  state 
chamber,  of  the  same  size. 

The  most  striking  article  of  furniture  is  the  stove,  a 


■'*'^- 


i 


474 


THE     FEAST. 


tall,  black  cylinder,  such  as  I  have  seen  in  the  Baltic 
cities,  standing  like  a  column  in  the  corner :  the  next, 
a  platoon  of  tobacco-pipes  paraded  against  the  wall : 
the  next — let  me  be  honest,  it  was  the  first — a  table, 
with  a  clean  white  cloth,  and  plates,  knives,  and  forks, 
all  equally  clean.  Overhead  hang  beams  as  heavy 
as  the  carlines  of  a  ship's  cabin :  below  is  an  uncov- 
ered floor  of  scrupulous  polish :  the  windows  are  re- 
cessed, glazed  in  small  squares,  and  opening,  door-like, 
behind  muslin  curtains :  the  walls  canvas,  painted, 
and  decorated  with  a  few  prints  altogether  remarkable 
for  intensity  of  color.  The  looking-glass ;  I  reserve  it 
for  more  special  mention.  It  was  not  very  large,  but 
it  was  the  first  we  had  encountered  since  we  came 
into  the  regions  of  ice.  "  To  see  ourselves  as  others 
see  us"  is  not  always  the  prayer  of  an  intelligent  self- 
love.  Sharp- visaged,  staring,  weather-beaten  old  men, 
wrinkle-marked,  tawny-bearded,  haggard-looking :  the 
boys  of  Uppernavik  are  better  bred  than  the  New  York- 
ers, or  they  would  have  mobbed  us. 

The  ladies — they  were  ladies,  they  knew  no  superi- 
ors ;  they  were  self-possessed,  hospitable ;  they  wore 
frocks,  and  they  did  not  laugh  at  us — the  ladies  spread 
the  meal,  coffee,  loons'  eggs,  brown  bread,  and  a  wel- 
come. We  ate  like  j  ail-birds.  At  last  came  the  crown- 
ing act  of  hospitality ;  on  the  bottom  of  a  blue  saucer, 
radiating  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel  or  the  sticks  of  a 
Delaware's  camp-fire,  crisp,  pale,  yet  blushing  at  their 
tips,  and  crowned  each  with  its  little  verdant  tuft — 
ten  radishes  !  Talk  of  the  mango  of  Luzon  and  the 
mangostine  of  Borneo,  the  cherimoya  of  Peru,  the  pine 
of  Sumatra,  the  seckel-pear  of  Schuylkill  meado\.  s ; 
but  the  palate  must  cease  to  have  a  memory  before  I 
yield  a  place  to  any  of  them  alongside  the  ten  radishes 
of  Uppernavik. 


THE     KAYACK. 


to 


On  the  twenty-fifth  we  reached  the  Whale- fish 
Islands,  and  at  six  in  the  evening  were  near  enough 
to  be  towed  in  by  our  boats  and  anchor  off  Kronprin- 
sen.  Flocks  of  kayacks  hung  about  our  vessel,  like 
birds  about  a  floating  spar.     We  thought  thein  more 


sprightly  and  active  than  the  Esquimaux  we  had  been 
among ;  but  perhaps  it  is  as  unfair  to  judge  of  the  Es- 
quimaux without  his  kayack  as  of  a  sloth  off  his  tree. 
There  was  a  bright  boy  among  them,  under  ten  years 
of  age,  who  could  manage  a  little  craft  they  had  built 
for  him  admirably.  He  called  to  us  that  his  name 
was  Paul.  Next  him  was  our  old  friend,  Jans,  of  the 
overturners — whose  portrait  I  have  given  in  the  mar- 
gin of  thd  following  page — and  under  our  bow,  Zach- 
arias,  the  quarter-breed ;  and  Paul,  senior,  the  pilot  of 
my  fur  expedition  to  Lievely. 

I  promised,  in  an  early  part  of  my  book,  to  say  some- 
thing more  about  the  kayack  and  its  occupant.  I  re- 
turn for  a  few  minutes  to  the  subject  now. 

The  common  length  of  the  kayack  is  about  eight- 
een feet,  its  breadth  on  deck  some  twenty-one  inches. 


i 


I 


'It; 


.^:i 


mi 


11 


476 


THE    kayack: 


and  its  depth  ten 
inches  in  the  middle, 
just  such  as  to  al- 
low  its  occupant  to 
sit  with  his  feet  ex- 
tended on  the  hot- 
torn  and  his  hips  be- 
low the  deck.  It  is 
always  built  with  a 
nice  adaptation  to  his 
weight. 

Its  frame  is  light 
enough  to  startle  all 
our  notions  of  naval 
construction,  and  it 
is  covered  with  noth- 
ing but  tanned  seal- 
hide.  Yet  in  this 
egg-shell  fabric  the 
Esquimaux  navigator  habitually,  and  fearlessly,  and 
successfully  too,  encounters  risks  which  his  more  civ- 
ilized rivals  in  the  seal-hunt,  the  men  of  New  Bedford 


H..;. 


and  Stonington,  would  rightfully  shrink  from.  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  can  make  such  a  description  of  its  pro- 
portions and  structure  as  a  ship-builder  would  under- 
stand ;  but  the  drawings  I  annex  have  been  made 
carefully  from  one  of  the  best  models,  and  may  be  re- 
lied on  for  all  the  information  that  can  be  gathered 
from  them. 


ITS     CONSTRUCTION. 


477 


C- - —    .r-: 


^ 


^a 


ff 


The  skeleton  consists  of  three  longitudinal  strips  of 
wood  on  each  side — it  would  be  wrong  to  call  them 
timbers,  for  they  are  rarely  thicker  than  a  common 
plastering  lath  —  stretching  from  end  to  end,  and 
shielded  at  the  stem  and  stern  by  cutwaters  of  bone. 
The  upper  of  these,  the  gunwale,  if  I  may  call  it  so,  is 

somewhat  stouter  than  the  others. 
The  bottom  is  framed  by  three  sim- 
ilar longitudinal  strips.  These  are 
crossed  by  other  strips  or  hoops, 
which  perform  the  office  of  knees  and  ribs  :  they  are 
placed  at  a  distance  of  not  more  than  eight  to  ten 
inches  from  one  another.  Wherever  the  parts  of  this 
frame-work  meet  or  cross,  they  are  bound  together 
with  reindeer  tendon  very  artistically.  The  general 
outline  is,  I  think,  given  accurately  in  the  sketch  on 
the  opposite  page. 

Over  this  little  basket-work  of  wood  is  stretched  the 
coating  of  seal  hides,  which  also  covers  the  deck,  very 
neatly  sewed  with  tendon,  and  firmly  glued  at  the 
edges  by  a  composition  of  reindeer  horn  scraped  and 
liquefied  in  oil.  A  varnish  made  of  the  same  mate« 
rials  is  used  to  protect  the  whole  exterior. 

The  pah,  or  man-hole,  as  we  would  term  it,  is  very 


•1 

A 

M^ 

^ 

3 

I 

J     1 

\ 

^> 

m 


,i.-\ 


^'-^ 


«1,  f 


478 


THE     IMPLEMENTS 


nearly  in  the  centre  of  the  little  vessel,  sometimes  a 
few  inches  toward  the  stern.  It  is  circular  or  nearly 
so,  wide  enough  to  let  the  kayacker  squeeze  his  hips 
through  it,  and  no  more.  It  has  a  rim  or  lip,  secured 
upon  the  gunwale,  and  rising  a  couple  of  inches  above 
the  deck,  so  as  to  permit  the  navigator  to  bind  it  wa- 
ter-tight around  his  person.  Immediately  in  front  of 
him  is  his  as-say-leut,  or  line  stand,  surmounted  by  a 
reel,  with  the  sealing-line  snugly  coiled  about  it,  and 
revolving  on  its  centre  with  the  slightest  touch.  He 
has  his  harpoon  and  his  lances  strapped  at  his  side ; 
his  rifle,  if  he  owns  one,  stowed  away  securely  be- 
tween decks.    • 

Just  behind  the  kayacker  rests  his  bladder-Joat  or 

air-bag,  an  air-tight  sack  of 
seal-skin,  always  kept  inflat- 
ed, and  fastened  to  the  sealing- 
line.  It  performs  the  double 
office  of  a  buoy,  and  a  break 
or  drag  to  retard  the  motion  of  the  prey  after  it  is 
struck. 

The  harpoon,  or  principal  lance  (unahk),  is  also  at- 


8  In. 


I  In. 


tached  to  the  sealing-line.  It  is  a  most  ingenious  de- 
vice.    The  rod  or  staff"  is  divided  at  right  angles  in 

two   pieces,   which 
are    neatly  jointed 
. lit ~  or  hinged  with  ten- 

don strips,  but  so  braced  by  the  manner  in  which  the 
tendon  is  made  to  cross  and  bind  in  the  lashing,  that, 
except  when  the  two  parts  are  severed  by  lateral  press- 
ure, they  form  but  a  single  shaft.     The  point,  gener- 


OF     THE     KAYACKER. 


479 


ally  an  arrow-head  ol' 
bone,  has  a  socket  to 
receive  the  end  of  the 
^  shaft:  it  disengages  it- 
self readily  from  its 
place,  but  still  remains  fast  to  the  end  of  the  line. 
Thus,  when  the  kayacker  has  struck  his  prey,  the 
shaft  escapes  the  risk  of  breaking  from  a  pull  against 
til 3  grain  by  bending  at  the  joint,  and  the  point  is 
carried  free  by  the  animal  as  he  dives. 

At  the  right  centre  of  gravity  of  the  harpoon,  that 
point,  I  mean,  at  which  a  cudgel-player  would  grasp 
his  staff,  a  neatly-arranged  cestits  or  holder  (noon-sok) 


«In. 


OfTSlDF.   OH    BACK    OF   THE    NOON-SOK. 


INSIDE    OR   SECTION   OF  THE   NOON-SOK. 


fits  itself  on  the  shaft.  It  serves  to  give  the  kayacker 
a  good  grip  when  casting  his  weapon,  but  slides  off 
from  it,  and  is  left  in  the  hand,  at  the  moment  of 
drawing  back  his  arm.     The  bird  javelin  [neu-ve-ak), 


sin. 


the  seal  \a,nce  {ah- gnu-ve'to),  and  the  rude  hunting-knife 


ntgmaiiSiiimmm 


mSi) 


8  In 


(ka-poot),  will  be  easily  understood  from  my  sketches. 


(i-Ui 


\m\ 


S  In. 


'■0 

m 


I     } 


480 


THE    kayacker: 


I 


I-    11  a. . 


The  paddle  (pa-uh-teet),  about  which  a  knowing 
Esquimaux  will  waste  as  many  words  as  a  sporting 
gentleman  upon  a  double-barreled  Manton  or  a  bridle- 
bit  of  peculiar  fancy,  is  in  every  respect  a  beautifully 
considered  instrument.  It  never  exceeds  seven  feet 
in  length.  It  is  double-bladed,  and  its  central  por- 
tion, which  receives  the  hands,  presents  an  ellipsoid 
face,  well  adapted  to  a  secure  grasp.  The  blades  are 
four  inches  in  width,  and  some  two  feet  in  length, 
forming  very  nearly  sections  of  a  cone.  Their  edges 
and  tips  are  carefully  guarded  from  the  cutting  action 
of  the  ice  by  the  ivory  of  the  walrus  or  narwhal. 

Thus  constructed  and  furnished,  its  seal-skin  cover- 
ing renewed  every  year,  the  kayack  is  the  life,  and 
pastime,  and  pride  of  its  owner.  He  carries  it  on  his 
shoulder  into  the  surf,  clad  in  his  water-proof  seal-skin 
dress,  belted  close  round  the  neck,  his  hood  firmly  set 
above ;  wedges  himself  into  the  man-hole,  unites  him- 
self  by  a  lashing  to  its  rim,  and  paddles  off  for  a  frolic 
outside  the  breakers,  or  it  may  be  a  seal-hunt,  or  to 
throw  his  javelin  at  the  eider,  or  perhaps  to  carry  dis- 
patches to  some  distant  settlement,  or  to  take  part  in 
a  crusade  against  the  reindeer. 

In  their  long  excursions  in  search  of  deer,  the  ka- 
yackers  paddle  their  way  to  the  nearest  portage  along 
the  coast,  and  shoulder  their  little  skiff  till  they  reach 
the  interior  lakes.  Their  dexterity  is  admirable  in  the 
use  of  their  weapons.  I  have  seen  them  spear  the  eider 
on  the  wing  and  the  loon  as  Jie  was  diving.  Scud- 
ding along  at  a  rate  equal  to  that  of  a  five-oared  whale- 
boat,  they  fling  their  tiny  javelin  far  ahead,  and,  with- 
out interrupting  their  progress,  seize  it  as  they  pass. 

The  authorities  of  Greenland  communicate  con- 
stantly with  their  different  posts  by  means  of  the  ka- 


HIS    DEXTERITY. 


481 


ka- 


li a- 


yack.  On  these  occasions  the  express  consists  of  two, 
traveling  together  for  assistance  and  fellowship.  They 
are  expeditious,  and  proverbially  reliable.  They  travel 
only  during  the  day.  At  night  they  land  upon  some 
well^ememhered  solitude ;  the  kayack  is  carried  up, 
and  laid  beside  the  leeward  face  of  some  protecting 
rock,  and,  after  a  scanty  meal,  the  Hosky  seats  him- 
self once  more  in  its  closely-fitting  hole ;  then,  draw- 
ing over  him  his  water-tight  hood,  he  leans  for  sup*- 
port  against  the  naked  stone,  and  sleeps.  One  of  these 
messengers  arrived  at  Holsteinberg  while  we  were 
there  from  Fredericshaab,  three  hundred  and  sixty 
miles  in  ten  days ;  traveling  along  a  tempestuous  coast, 
with  varying  winds  and  currents,  at  a  mean  rate  of 
thirty-six  miles  a  day. 

It  is  said  the  expertness  of  the  kayacker  increases 
as  you  proceed  south.  If  the  natives  of  Julianshaab 
and  Lichtenfels  surpass  those  of  Egedesminde  and 
Holsteinberg,  their  feats  are  unnecessarily  wonderful. 
Here  are  some  of  them,  not  performed  as  such,  but 
illustrating  the  accomplishments  of  a  well-trained 
man. 

Extending  out  from  an  offsetting  mountain-ridge  to 
the  north  of  Holsteinberg,  is  a  rocky  reef  or  ledge,  over 
which  the  sea  breaks  heavily,  and  the  currents  run 
with  perplexing  caprice  and  force.  In  almost  all  sorts 
of  weather,  if  there  be  only  light  enough  to  see,  the 
kayacks  may  be  met  playing  about  these  surf-beaten 
passages,  regardless  of  wind,  swell,  or  tides.  When 
our  vessel  was  entering  port,  we  were  boarded  by  a 
kayack  pilot.  In  spite  of  the  heavy  seaway,  he  ap- 
preached  fearlessly  to  the  side  of  the  brig,  then,  pois- 
ing himself  on  the  slope  of  the  waves,  he  avoided  the 
trough,  and,  passing  a  running  bowline  fore  and  ail 

H  H 


»> 


■liiL-  '  !/i 


'iM\'t^ 


r.i'i 


wi  if 


if.:  !  . 
I' 1' 


i 


iS[ 


482 


FEATS    OF    THE     KAYACKER. 


over  his  little  craft,  man  and  boat  were  lifted  bodily 
on  board. 

Going  out  to  seaward,  with  a  heavy  inshore  surf 
rolling,  is  no  trifle,  even  to  well-manned  whale-boats. 
The  kayacker  paddles  quietly  out  toward  the  break- 
ers. The  roaring  lip  of  green  water  bends  roof-like 
over  him.  Down  cowers  the  pliant  man,  his  right 
shoulder  buried  in  the  water,  and  his  hooded  head 
bowed  upon  his  breast.  An  instant  and  he  emerges 
on  the  outer  side  with  a  jutting  impulse,  shaking  the 
water  from  his  mane,  and  preparing  for  a  fresh  en- 
counter. 

The  somerset,  the  "  cantrum,"  as  the  whalers  term 
it,  may  be  seen  any  hour  of  the  day  for  a  plug  of  to- 
bacco or  a  glass  of  rum.  I  have  seen  it  with  different 
degrees  of  address ;  but  one,  that  Mr.  Mtiller,  the  gov- 
ernor of  Holsteinberg,  told  me  of,  is  the  perfection  of 
dextrous  overturning.  The  kayacker  takes  a  stone, 
as  large  as  he  can  grasp  in  his  hand,  holding  the  pad- 
dle by  the  imperfect  grip  of  the  thumbs.  He  whirls 
his  hands  over  his  head,  upsets  his  little  bark,  buries 
it  bottom  up,  and  rights  himself  on  the  other  side, 
still  holding  the  stone. 

But  after  all,  the  crowning  feat  is  the  every-day 
one  of  catching  the  seal.  For  this  the  kayack  is  con- 
structed, and  it  is  here  that  its  wonderful  adaptation 
of  purpose  is  best  displayed.  V/ithout  describing  the 
admirable  astuteness  with  which  he  finds  and  ap- 
proaches his  prey,  let  us  suppose  the  kayacker  close 
upon  a  seal.  The  line-stand  is  carefully  examined,  the 
coil  adj  usted,  the  attachments  to  the  body  of  the  boat 
so  fixed  that  the  slightest  strain  will  separate  them. 
The  bladder-float  is  disengaged,  and  the  harpoon  tipped 
with  its  barb,  which  forms  the  extremity  of  the  coil. 


i:^i: 


HIS    SEAL    HUNT. 


483 


In  an  instant  the  kayacker  has  thrown  his  body 
back  and  sent  his  weapon  home.  Whirr!  goes  the 
little  coil,  and  the  float  is  bobbing  over  the  water — 
not  far,  however,  for  the  barb  has  entered  the  lungs, 
and  the  seal  must  rise  for  breath.  Now  the  harpoon 
is  picked  up,  its  head  remaining  in  the  victim ;  and 
the  kayack  comes  along.  Here  is  required  discretion 
as  well  as  address.  The  hunter  has  probably  but  two 
weapons,  a  lance  and  a  knife.  The  latter  he  can  not 
part  with,  and  even  the  lance  brings  him  to  closer 
quarters  than  the  safety  of  his  craft  would  invite ;  for 
the  contortions  of  a  large  seal  thus  wounded  may  tear 
it  at  some  of  the  seams,  and  the  merest  crevice  is  cer- 
tain destruction.  If  he  has  with  him  the  light  javelin 
which  he  uses  for  spearing  birds,  he  may  be  tempted 
to  employ  it  now ;  but  this,  I  believe,  is  not  altogether 
sportsmanlike.  The  lance  generally  gives  the  coup- 
de-grace. 

And  now,  from  the  greasy  and  somewhat  odorifer- 
ous recesses  of  the  kayack,  you  see  him  taking  a  dirty 
little  coil  of  walrus  hide,  bearing  several  queer  little 
toggles  of  bone.  With  a  knowing  gash  of  his  knife, 
he  makes  a  hole  in  the  under  jaw  of  the  seal :  the 
bone  is  passed  through ;  and  the  seal,  towed  alongside, 
comes  in  to  rejoice  the  expectant  wife  and  children. 

Small  and  frail  as  the  kayack  is,  its  perfect  adapta- 
tion and  beautiful  management  make  it  nearly  inde- 
pendent of  the  mere  danger  of  the  sea.  What,  then, 
makes  the  kayacker's  pursuit  one  of  constant  excite- 
ment, and  often  of  fatal  peril  ? 

It  is  the  risk  of  perforation.  The  Greenland  seas 
abound  with  ice  and  drift-wood.  The  kayacker  is 
firmly  wedged — as  one  with  his  vessel ;  and  the  ka- 
yack itself  is  a  mere  diaphragm  of  skin,  stretched  on  a 


:f|ii 


"'„l.li!' 


: '.  ■! 


mm 


m  i 


■:1 


I 


I 
I 


484 


HAZARDS  AND  RESCUE. 


wooden  frame.  Even  by  the  friction  of  use,  it  be- 
comes as  attenuated  as  parchment,  and  sometimes 
parts  by  the  mere  contraction  of  changing  tempera- 
tures.  I  have  seen  them  at  the  brig's  quarter  so  trans- 
parent that  the  wash  of  the  waves,  and  even  the  float- 
ing actinia,  were  visible  through  their  sides.  The 
seams,  too,  however  carefully  secured  at  first,  will  nev- 
ertheless warp  in  the  sunshine.  Constant  scrutiny 
and  skill  can  hardly  insure  them  against  hazard. 

This  proves  itself  sadly.  About  three  kayacks  a 
year  are  missing  from  Holsteinberg,  and  the  other  set- 
tlements have  a  nearly  similar  ratio  of  mortality.  The 
kayack  is  sometimes  the  coffin  of  its  owner,  and  the 
two  skeletons  have  more  than  once  been  found  togeth- 
er on  the  lonely  beaches  of  this  bleak  coast. 

In  quiet  weather,  however,  by  much  address,  two 
may  save  one ;  or  by  towing,  if  the  distance  be  not 
great  from  shore,  even  one  may  save  another.  The 
first  of  these  modes  of  rescue  consists  in  lashing  the 
two  kayacks  at  the  sides  of  the  wreck,  or  by  running 
the  paddle  that  belonged  to  it  through  the  strong  cross- 
lines  of  walrus  hide  which  stretch  across  the  tops  of 
the  other  two.  The  unfortunate  man  is  then  extri- 
cated from  the  pah  or  hole,  and  sits  very  comfortably 
behind  with  a  knee  on  each  boat.  I  have  seen  Esqui- 
maux carried  ashore  from  our  brig  in  this  manner.  In 
the  other  case,  the  unfortunate,  with  his  inflated  float, 
may  grasp  the  stern  of  his  friendly  helper,  and  be  tow- 
ed to  shore ;  but  in  these  icy  waters  nature  sustains 
herself  with  difficulty  against  the  cold. 

It  has  happened  sometimes,  but  so  very  rarely  as  to 
be  chronicled  always  for  a  wonder,  that  a  strong  and 
determined  fellow,  with  the  aid  of  bladder-float,  and 
superhuman  exertion  besides,  has  managed  to  reach 


INVOLUNTARY    EXPATRIATION. 


485 


the  shore.  The  last  who  did  so  \yas  found  frozen  stiflf 
on  the  beach,  his  float  attached  to  his  person.  It  was 
to  the  north  of  Uppernavik. 

I  had  heard  stories  of  the  voluntary  expatriation  of 
some  of  these  poor  people.  It  was  said  that  men  who 
had  been  missing  for  years  were  found  afterward  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Cape  Walsingham,  having  made 
the  transit  of  the  bay  on  the  ice  in  midwinter.  But 
I  believe  it  to  be  a  libel,  and  that  Home  is  home  even 
to  a  Greenlander.  Mr.  Zimmel,  the  inspector  for  the 
time  at  Egedesminde,  told  me  that  the  ice  between 
Cape  Walsingham  and  Holsteinberg,  and  above,  is 
never  absolutely  fast.  Sometimes,  he  said,  it  was  so 
impacted  against  the  coast  as  to  appear  continuous, 
and  upon  a  change  of  wind  afterward  would  drive 
across  the  bay,  so  as  to  open  on  the  one  shore  and  close 
on  the  other. 

This  occasional  tendency  of  the  ice-raft  to  float 
across  the  bay  has  given  rise  to  some  fearful  accidents. 
It  would  be  difficult  for  fiction  to  exceed  some  of 
the  stories  that  are  well  authenticated  of  these  poor 
nomads. 

Esquimaux  who  have  gone  out  with  kayack  or 
sledge  have  been  mourned  as  dead.  Years  afterward 
messages  have  come  by  the  whalers  of  their  safety  in 
the  unknown  regions  of  the  West,  and  of  their  adop- 
tion there ;  but  after  trials  too  fearful  to  be  recounted. 
Some  years  ago — the  year  was  mentioned,  but  I  have 
forgot  it — a  couple  of  Esquimaux,  relatives,  set  out  on 
a  sledge  in  quest  of  seal.  The  great  ice-plain  formed 
one  continuous  sheet  from  the  Greenland  shore  as  far 
as  the  eye  could  reach.  During  the  night,  one  of 
them,  awaking  from  a  heavy  sleep,  found  that  the  wind 
had  shifted  to  the  eastward.    It  was  blowing  gently. 


^'''  if 


T!!jl! 


■S  •ii'  'M 


m^'  :\ 


486 


CONCLUSION. 


and  could  hardly  have  been  blowing  long.  They  har- 
nessed in  their  dogs,  urged  them  to  their  utmost  speed, 
and  made  for  the  land  they  had  left.  Too  late!  a 
yawning  chasm  of  open  water  lay  already  between. 
A  day  was  lost  in  frantic  despair.  It  blew  a  gale,  an 
offshore  southeaster.  The  fog  rose,  the  wind  still  from 
the  east:  the  shore  was  gone. 

The  story  is  a  wild  one.  They  reharnessed  the  dogs, 
and  turned  to  the  west,  one  hundred  and  thirty  track- 
less miles  of  ice  before  them.  On  the  third  day  the 
dogs  gave  out :  one  of  the  lost  men  killed  his  fellow, 
and  revived  the  animals  with  his  flesh.  The  wretch- 
ed survivor  at  last  reached  the  North  American  shore 
about  Merchant's  Bay.  Years  afterward,  this  account 
came  over  by  a  circuitous  channel  to  the  Greenland 
settlement.  He  had  married  a  new  wife,  had  a  new 
family,  a  new  home,  a  new  country,  from  which,  had 
he  desired  it  never  so  much,  there  could  be  for  him 
no  return. 

The  traditions  of  all  the  settlements  have  tales  of 
similar  disaster.  Yet  the  Esquimaux  are  a  happy  race 
of  people,  happy  so  far  as  content  and  an  elastic  tem- 
perament go  to  make  up  happiness. 

I  should  like  to  dilate  for  a  while  on  some  of  their 
superstitions,  which  crop  out  now  and  then  through 
their  adopted  faith,  as  if  to  show  the  Scandinavian 
mythology  it  overlays.  I  have  the  materials  by  me, 
too,  for  some  passages  about  their  seemingly  innate 
fondness  for  music,  their  roundelays  and  hymns,  the 
little  organ  at  Holsteinberg,  which  has  come  back  from 
Denmark  repaired  since  Sir  John  Ross's  visit,  the  vio- 
lins of  the  church  orchestra,  and  the  abominably  it- 
erated accordions,  with  their  kj  adred  Jews-harps.    I 


fiiPl, 


CONCLUSION. 


48^ 


should  have  been  excused,  perhaps,  for  adding  a  chap- 
ter  also  on  the  probabilities  of  Sir  John  Franklin's 
company  being  yet  alive,  and  the  duty  of  adventurous 
Christendom  to  persist  in  the  effort  for  their  rescue. 

But  the  story  of  our  cruise  is  told ;  and  my  readers 
will  be  almost  as  willing  as  I  was  to  hurry  onwards 
to  our  own  shores.  Before  these  pages  can  pass  through 
the  press,  I  shall  have  given  such  assurance  as  it  is  in 
my  power  to  give  of  my  convictions  that  the  missing 
party  may  be  found,  and  should  be  sought  for.  If 
God  shall  favor  me,  I  may  be  able  to  speak  hereafter, 
from  a  renewed  and  more  intimate  personal  knowledge, 
of  the  habits  and  feelings  of  the  Greenland  people. 

We  left  the  settlements  of  Baffin's  Bay  on  the  6th 
of  September,  1851,  grateful  exceedingly  to  the  kind- 
hearted  officers  of  the  Danish  posts;  and  after  a  run  of 
some  twenty-four  days,  unmarked  by  incident,  touch- 
ed our  native  soil  again  at  New  York.  Our  noble 
friend,  Henry  Grinnell,  was  the  first  to  welcome  us  on 
the  pier-head. 


IP 

liiiij 


.11  f      ,j; 


APPENDIX. 


A.  Instructions  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  Lieut.  De  Haven,  commanding 

the  U.  S.  Grinnell  Expedition. 

B.  Lieut.  De  Haven's  Report  on  the  Return  of  the  Expedition. 

C.  Current  Chart,  and  Half-monthly  Meteorological  Abstracts  of  the  Log-book 

of  the  U.  S.  Brig  Advance  during  the  Cruise,  prepared  by  Charles  A.  Schott, 
Esq.,  of  the  U.  S.  Coast  Survey. 

D.  Half-monthly  Abstract  of  the  mean  Force  of  the  Wind,  the  mean  Tempei.^- 

ture  of  the  Air  ami  Water,  and  the  mean  Height  of  the  Barometer  at  the 
Level  of  the  Sea  during  the  Cruise,  prepared  by  Charles  A.  Schott,  Esq., 
U.  S.  Coast  Survey. 

E  Table  of  the  relative  Frequency  of  the  Winds  in  each  month  from  June,  1850, 
to  August,  1850,  and  from  January,  1851,  to  August,  1851  (all  inclusive),  on 
the  meridian  of  Baffin's  Bay,  and  from  September,  1851,  to  December,  1851. 
(both  inclusive),  on  more  western  Meridians,  prepared  by  Charles  A.  Schott, 
Esq.,  U.  S.  Coast  Survey. 

F.  Lecture  on  the  Access  to  an  Open  Polar  Sea  in  connection  with  the  Search 
after  Sir  John  Franklin  and  his  Companions,  read  before  the  American 
Geographical  and  Statistical  Society  at  its  regular  monthly  meeting,  by  Dr. 
Kane,  December  14,  1852. 


APPENDIX. 


A. 

INSTRUCTIONS  OF  THE  SECRETARY  OF  THE   NAVY  TO  LIEUT. 
DE  HAVEN,  COMMANDING  THE  U.  S.  GRINNELL  EXPEDITION. 

United  States  Navy  Department,        ) 
Washington,  Wednesday,  May  IS,  18S0.  ) 

Sir, — Having  been  selected  to  command  the  expedition  in  search  of  Sir  John 
Franklin  and  his  companions,  you  will  take  charge  of  the  brigantines,  the  Ad- 
vance and  Rescue,  that  have  been  fitted  out  for  that  service,  and  as  soon  as 
you  are  ready,  proceed  with  them  to  sea,  and  make  the  best  of  your  way  to 
Lancaster  Sound. 

These  vessels  have  been  furnished  to  the  government  for  this  service  by  the 
munificence  of  a  private  citizen,  Mr.  Henry  Grinnell,  of  New  York.  You  will, 
therefore,  bt  careful  of  them,  that  they  may  be  returned  to  their  owner  in  good 
condition.     They  have  been  provisioned  for  three  years. 

Passed  Midshipman  S.  P.  Griflfin  has  been  selected  to  command  one  of  the 
vessels.  You  will,  therefore,  consider  him  as  your  second  in  command.  Con- 
fer with  him,  and  treat  him  accordingly. 

The  chief  object  of  this  expedition  is  to  search  for,  and,  if  found,  afford  relief 
to  Sir  John  Franklin,  of  the  Royal  Navy,  and  his  companions. 

You  will,  therefore,  use  all  diligence  and  make  every  exertion  to  this  end, 
payi  attention  as  you  go  to  subjects  of  scientific  inquiry  only  so  far  as  they 
mi     not  interfere  with  the  main  object  of  the  expedition. 

Having  passed  Barrow's  Straits,  you  will  turn  your  attention  northward  to 
Wellington  Channel,  and  westward  to  Cape  Walker,  and  be  governed  by  cir- 
cumstances as  to  the  course  you  will  then  take. 

Accordingly,  you  will  exercise  your  own  discretion,  after  seeing  the  condition 
of  the  ice,  sea,  and  weather,  whether  the  two  vessels  shall  here  separate — one 
for  Cape  Walker,  and  the  other  for  Wellington  Straits  ;  or  whether  they  shall 
both  proceed  together  for  the  one  place  or  the  other. 

Should  you  find  it  impossible,  on  account  of  the  ice,  to  get  through  to  Barrow's 
Straits,  you  will  then  turn  your  attention  to  Jones's  Sound  and  Smith's  Sound. 
Finding  these  closed  or  impracticable,  and  faiUng  of  all  traces  of  the  missing 
expedition,  the  season  will  probably  then  be  too  far  advanced  for  any  other  at- 
tempts.   If  so,  you  will  return  to  New  York. 

Acquaint  Passed  Midshipman  Grifllin  before  sailing,  and  from  time  to  time 
during  the  voyag*;,  fully  with  all  your  plans  and  intentions,  and  before  sailing 
appoint  a  place  of  rendezvous;  change  it  as  often  as  circumstances  may  render 
a  change  desirable,  but  always  have  a  place  of  rendezvous  fixed  upon,  so  that 
in  case  tho  two  vessels  of  the  expedition  may  at  any  time  become  separated, 
each  may  know  where  to  look  for  the  other. 


492 


INSTRUCTIONS    TO 


Nearly  the  entire  Arctic  front  of  the  continent  han  been  scoured  without  find- 
ing any  traces  of  the  missing  ships.  It  is  useless  fo.'  you  to  go  there,  or  to  re- 
examine any  other  place  where  search  has  already  been  )i>adc.  You  will,  there- 
fore, confine  your  attention  to  the  routes  already  indici'.ted. 

The  point  of  maximum  cold  is  said  to  be  in  the  vicinity  of  Parry  Islands. 
To  the  north  and  west  of  these  there  is  probably  a  comparative  open  sea  in 
summer,  and  therefore  a  milder  climate. 

This  opinion  seems  to  be  sustained  by  the  fact  that  beasts  and  fowls  are  seen 
migrating  over  the  ice  from  the  mouth  of  Mackenzie  liiver  and  its  neighboring 
shores  to  the  north.  These  dumb  creatures  are  probably  led  by  their  wise  in- 
stincts to  seek  a  more  genial  climate  in  that  direction,  and  upon  the  borders  of 
the  supposed  more  open  sea. 

There  are  other  facts  elicited  by  Lieutenant  Maury,  in  the  course  of  his  in- 
vestigations touching  the  winds  and  currents  of  the  ocean,  which  go  also  to 
confirm  the  opinion,  that  beyond  the  icy  barrier  that  is  generally  met  with  in  the 
Arctic  Ocean,  there  is  a  Polina,  or  sea  free  from  ice. 

You  have  assisted  in  these  investigations  at  the  National  Observatory,  and 
are  doubtless  aware  of  the  circumstances  which  authorize  this  conclusion  ;  it 
is  therefore  needless  to  repeat  them. 

This  supposed  open  sea  and  warmer  rei^ion  to  the  north  and  west  of  Parry 
Islands  are  unexplored.  Should  you  succeed  in  finding  any  opening  there, 
either  after  having  cleared  Wellington  Straits,  or  after  having  cleared  Parry  Isl- 
ands by  a  northwardly  course  from  Cape  Walker,  enter  as  far  as  in  your  judg- 
ment it  may  be  prudent  to  enter,  and  search  every  headland,  promontory,  and 
conspicuous  point  for  signs  and  records  of  the  missing  party.  Take  particular 
care  to  avail  yourself  of  every  opportunity  for  leaving  as  you  go  records  and 
signs  to  tell  of  your  welfare,  progress,  and  intentions. 

For  this  purpose  you  will  erect  flag-staffs,  make  piles  of  stone,  or  other  marks 
in  conspicuous  places,  with  a  bottle  or  banica  buried  at  the  base  containing 
your  letters. 

Should  the  two  vessels  be  separated,  you  will  direct  Passed  Midshipman  Grif- 
fin to  do  likewise. 

Avail  yourself  of  every  opportunity,  either  by  the  Esquimaux  or  otherwise, 
to  let  the  Department  hear  from  you  ;  and  in  every  communication  be  full  and 
particular  as  to  your  future  plans  and  intended  route. 

If  by  any  chance  you  should  penetrate  so  far  beyond  the  icy  barrier  as  to 
make  it,  in  your  judgment,  more  prudent  to  push  on  than  to  turn  back,  you  will 
do  so,  and  put  yourself  in  communication  with  any  of  the  United  States  naval 
forces  or  oflicers  of  the  government  iierving  in  the  waters  of  the  Pacific  or  in 
China,  according  to  your  necessities  and  opportunities.  Those  officers  will  be 
instructed  to  afford  you  every  facility  possible  to  enable  you  to  reach  the  west- 
ern coast  of  the  United  States  in  safe  ty. 

In  the  event  of  your  falling  in  with  any  of  the  British  searching  parties,  you 
will  oflTer  them  any  assistance  of  which  they  may  stand  in  need,  and  which  it 
may  be  in  your  power  to  give.  Offer,  also,  to  make  them  acquainted  with  your 
intended  route  and  plans,  and  be  ready  to  afford  them  every  information  of 
which  you  may  have  become  possessed  concerning  the  object  of  your  search. 

In  case  your  country  should  be  involved  in  war  during  your  absence  o  i  this 
service,  you  will  on  no  account  commit,  or  suffer  any  one  of  the  expedition 


COMMANDER    DE     HAVEN. 


493 


to  commit,  the  least  act  of  hostility  against  the  enemy,  of  whatever  nation  he 
may  be. 

Notwithstanding  the  directions  in  which  you  have  been  recommended  to 
carry  your  examinations,  you  may,  on  a/riving  out  upon  the  field  of  operation, 
find  that  by  departing  from  them  your  search  would  probably  be  more  effectual. 

The  Department  has  every  confidence  in  your  judgment,  and  relies  implicitly 
upon  your  discretion ;  and  should  it  appear  during  the  voyage  that,  by  directing 
your  attention  to  points  not  named  in  this  letter,  traces  of  the  absent  expedition 
would  probably  be  found,  you  will  not  fail  to  examine  such  points.  But  you 
will  on  no  account  uselessly  hazard  the  safety  of  the  vessels  under  your  com- 
mand, or  unnecessarily  expose  to  danger  the  officers  and  men  committed  to 
your  charge. 

Unless  circumstances  should  favor  you,  by  enabling  you  to  penetrate,  before 
the  young  ice  begins  to  make  in  the  fall,  far  into  the  unexplored  regions,  or  to 
discover  recent  traces  of  the  missing  ships  and  their  gallant  crews,  or  unless 
you  should  gain  a  position  from  which  you  could  commence  operations  in  the 
season  of  1851  with  decided  advantage,  you  will  endeavor  not  to  be  caught  in 
the  ice  during  the  ensuing  winter,  but,  after  having  completed  your  examina- 
tions for  the  season,  make  your  escape,  and  return  to  New  York  in  the  fall. 

You  are  especially  enjoined  not  to  spend,  if  it  can  be  avoided,  more  than  one 
winter  in  the  Arctic  regions. 

Wishing  you  and  your  gallant  companions  all  success  in  your  noble  enter- 
prise, and  with  the  trust  in  God  that  He  will  take  you  and  them  in  his  holy 
keeping,  I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  servant, 

William  Ballakd  Priston. 

To  Edwin  J.  De  Haven,  Lientenant  commanding  tbe  ) 
American  Arctic  Expedition,  &c.,  New  York.        ) 


•'ii 


<ii|!1 


<'f     ' 


i^ 


u 


W 
11 


il 


■'■    j'm! 


494 


COMMANDER    DE    HAVEN   S 


it'    'P 


■•-)    • 


U:i     ^ 


B. 

LIEUT.  DE  HAVEN'S  OFFICIAL  REPORT  OF  THE  AMERICAN  ARC- 
TIC EXPEDITION. 

U.  S.  Brig  Advance, 
New  York,  October  4,  1851. 

Sir, — I  have  the  honor  to  submit  the  following  as  the  proceedings  of  the 
squadron  under  my  command  subsequent  to  the  22d  of  August,  1850,  up  to 
which  time  the  Department  is  already  advised  of  its  movements. 

On  the  83d  of  August  we  approached  Port  Leopold ;  but  the  necessity  of  a 
detention  here  to  search  for  information  was  precluded  by  our  falling  in  with 
the  English  yacht  Prince  Albert,  Commander  Forsyth,  R.  N.  He  informed  us 
that  the  harbor  was  still  filled  with  ice,  so  as  to  render  it  inaccessible  to  ves- 
sels. A  boat,  however,  had  been  sent  in,  but  no  traces  of  the  missing  expedi- 
tion were  found. 

We  now  stood  over  for  the  north  shore,  passing  to  the  eastward  of  Leopold 
Island,  threading  our  way  through  much  heavy  stream-ice.  Barrow's  Straits 
to  the  westward  presented  one  mass  of  heavy  and  closely-packed  ice,  extend- 
ing close  into  the  coast  of  North  Somerset.  On  the  north  shore  we  found  open 
water,  reaching  to  the  westward  as  far  as  Beechy  Island. 

At  noon  on  the  25th  we  were  off  Cape  Riley,  where  the  vessel  was  hove  to, 
and  a  boat  sent  ashore  to  examine  a  cairn  erected  in  a  conspicuous  position. 
It  was  found  to  contain  a  record  of  H.  B.  M.'s  ship  Assistance,  deposited  the 
day  before.  Another  record  informed  us  that  our  consort  had  visited  the  cape 
at  the  same  time  with  the  Assistance. 

Fragments  of  painted  wood  and  preserved  meat  tins  were  picked  up  on  the 
low  point  of  the  cape ;  there  were  also  other  indications  that  it  had  been  the 
camping  ground  of  some  civilized  traveUng  or  hunting  party.  Our  speculations 
at  once  connected  them  with  the  object  of  our  search. 

While  making  our  researches  on  shore,  the  vessel  was  set  by  a  strong  cur- 
rent near  the  point,  where,  becoming  hampered  by  some  masses  of  ice,  she  took 
the  ground.  Every  effort  was  made  to  get  her  off,  but  the  falling  tide  soon  left 
her  hard  and  fast.  We  now  lightened  her  of  all  weighty  articles  about  deck, 
and  prepared  to  renew  our  efforts  when  the  tide  should  rise.  This  took  place 
about  midnight,  when  she  was  hauled  off  without  apparent  injury. 

The  Prince  Alben  approached  us  while  aground,  and  Commander  Forsyth 
tendered  his  assistance;  it  was  not,  however,  required.  Soon  after,  the  Res- 
cue came  in  sight  from  around  Beechy  Island,  and  making  us  out  in  our  awk- 
ward predicament,  hove  to  in  the  offing,  and  sent  a  boat  in.  She  had  been  up 
Wellington  Channel  as  far  as  Point  Innes.  Tiie  condition  of  the  ice  prevented 
her  from  reaching  Cape  Hotham  (the  appointed  place  of  rendezvous),  so  she 
had  returned  in  search  of  us. 

On  the  26th,  with  a  light  breeze,  we  passed  Beechy  Island,  and  run  through 
a  narrow  lead  to  the  north.  Immediately  above  Point  Innes  the  ice  of  Wel- 
lington Channel  was  fixed  and  unbroken  from  shore  to  shore,  and  had  every 
indication  of  having  so  remained  for  at  least  three  years.     It  was  generally 


:an  arc- 


.J 


ance, 
r4,  1851. 
lings  of  the 
1850,  up  to 


cessity  of  a 
ling  in  with 
nformed  us 
iible  to  ves- 
sing  expedi- 

[  of  Leopold 
3w's  Straits 
ice,  extend- 
!  found  open 

vas  hove  to, 
us  position, 
posited  the 
ed  the  cape 

d  up  on  tlie 
ad  been  the 
speculations 

strong  cur- 
oe,  she  took 
de  soon  left 
about  deck, 
3  took  place 

ler  Forsyth 
3r,  the  Res- 
n  our  awk- 
ad  been  up 
3  prevented 
ms),  so  she 

un  through 
ice  of  Wel- 
1  had  every 
s  generally 


OFFICIAL    REPORT. 


495 


about  eight  feet  thick,  and  the  sharp,  angular  hummocks,  peculiar  to  recently- 
formed  ice,  had  been  rounded  down  to  gentle  hillocks  by  the  action  of  the 
weather  for  several  seasons.  Further  progress  to  the  north  was  out  of  the 
question.  To  the  west,  however,  along  the  edge  of  the  fixed  ice,  a  lead  pre- 
sented itself,  with  a  freshening  wind  from  the  southeast.  We  ran  into  it,  but 
at  half  way  across  the  channel  our  headway  was  arrested  by  the  closing  ice. 
A  few  miles  beyond  this,  two  of  the  English  vessels  (one  a  steamer)  were  dan- 
gerously beset.  I  deemed  it  prudent  to  return  to  Point  Innes,  under  the  lee 
of  which  the  vessels  might  hold  on  in  security  until  a  favorable  change  should 
take  place. 

On  Point  Innes  distinct  traces  of  an  encampment  were  found,  together  with 
many  relics  siniilar  to  those  found  at  Cape  Riley.  Captain  Peimy  (whose  squad- 
ron we  met  here)  picked  up  a  piece  of  paper  containing  the  name  of  one  of  the 
officers  of  Franklin's  Expedition,  written  in  pencil,  thus  proving  beyond  a  doubt 
that  some  of  his  party  had  encamped  here ;  but  when,  or  under  whiit  circum- 
stances, it  was  difficult  to  say.  The  preserved-meat  cans,  moreover,  bore  the 
name  of  the  person  who  had  supplied  his  ships  with  that  article. 

On  Point  Innes  we  also  found  the  remains  of  an  Esquimaux's  hut ;  but  it  had 
evidently  been  abandoned  for  many  years.  No  recent  traces  of  this  people  were 
found  on  any  of  the  shores  of  Lancaster  Sound  that  we  visited. 

The  weather  becoming  more  favorable,  we  retraced  our  steps  as  far  as 
Beechy  Island,  in  order  to  make  more  minute  investigations  in  that  quarter. 
The  vessels  were  made  fast  to  the  land-ice  on  the  northwest  side  of  the  island 
on  the  27th  of  August.  The  schooner  Felix,  Captain  Sir  John  Ross,  R.  N.,  and 
the  squadron  under  Captain  Penny,  joined  us  at  this  point.  Consulting  with 
these  gentlemen,  a  joint  search  was  instituted  along  the  adjacent  shores  in  all 
directions.  In  a  short  time  one  of  Captain  Penny's  men  returned  and  reported 
that  he  had  discovered  several  graves.  On  examination,  his  report  proved  to  be 
correct.  Three  well-made  graves  were  found,  with  painted  head-boards  of 
wood,  the  inscriptions  on  which  were  as  follows : 

1st. 
"  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  W.  Braine,  R.  M.,  H.  M.  S. '  Erebus.'    Died  April 
3d,  1846,  aged  32  years.     '  Choose  ye  this  day  whom  you  will  serve.' '" 

2d. 
"  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Jno.  Hartwell,  A.  B.,  H.  M.  S.  '  Erebus,'  aged  23 
years.    '  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  consider  your  ways.'  " 

3d. 
«'  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  Jno.  Torrington,  who  depa.  ,ed  this  life  January 
1st,  A.l).  1846,  on  board  H.  M.  C.  '  Terror,'  aged  20." 

Near  the  graves  were  also  other  unmistakable  evidences  of  the  missing  expe- 
dition having  passed  its  first  winter  here.  They  consisted  of  innumerable 
scraps  of  old  rope  and  canvas  ;  tlie  blocks  on  which  stood  the  armorer's  anvil, 
with  many  pieces  of  coal  and  iron  around  it ;  the  outlines  of  .several  tents  or 
houses,  supposed  to  have  been  the  site  of  the  Observatory  and  erectioi">  for 
sheltering  the  mechanics.  The  chips  and  shavings  of  the  carpenter  still  re 
mained.  A  short  distance  from  this  was  fou'^d  a  large  number  of  preserved- 
meat  tins,  all  having  the  same  label  as  those  ftmnd  at  Point  Innes. 

From  all  these  indications  the  inference  could  not  fail  to  be  arrived  at  that 


■mi 

.  r 


':.'i 


ir-,/ 


■'4  K.r] 


.,  ■! 


496 


COMMANDER    DE    HAVEN   S 


f'l. 


the  Erebus  and  Terror  had  made  this  their  first  winter  quarters  after  leaving 
England,  The  spot  was  admirably  chosen  for  the  security  of  the  ships,  as  well 
as  for  their  early  escape  the  following  season.  Every  thing,  too,  went  to  prove, 
up  to  this  point,  that  the  expedition  was  well  organized,  and  that  the  vessels  had 
not  received  any  material  injury. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  the  28th  of  August,  H.  B.  M.  ship  Resolute  (Captain 
Austin),  with  her  steam-tender,  arrived  from  the  eastward.  Renewed  efforts 
were  made  by  all  parties  to  discover  some  written  notice,  which,  according  to 
his  instructions,  Sir  J.  Franklin  ought  to  have  deposited  at  this  place  in  some 
conspicuous  position.  A  cairn  of  stones,  erected  on  the  highest  part  of  the  isl- 
and, was  discovered.  A  most  thorough  search  with  crows  and  picks  was  in- 
stituted at  and  about  it,  in  the  presence  of  all  hands.  This  search  was  contin- 
ued for  several  days,  but  not  the  slightest  vestige  of  a  record  could  be  found. 
The  graves  were  not  opened  or  disturbed. 

Captain  Sir  John  Ross  had  towed  out  from  England  a  small  vessel  of  about 
twelve  tons.  He  proposed  leaving  her  at  this  point,  to  fall  back  upon  in  case 
of  disaster  to  any  of  the  searching  vessels.  Our  contribution  to  supply  her 
was  three  barrels  of  provisions. 

From  the  most  elevated  part  of  Beechy  Island  (about  eight  hundred  feet  high) 
an  extensive  view  was  liad,  both  to  the  north  and  west.  No  open  water  could 
be  seen  in  either  direction. 

On  the  27th  of  August  we  cast  off  from  Beechy  Island,  and  joined  our  consort 
at  the  edge  of  the  fixed  ice,  near  Point  Innes.  Acting  Master  S.  P.  Griffin,  com- 
mander of  the  Rescue,  had  just  returned  from  a  searching  excursion  along  the 
shore,  on  which  he  had  been  dispatched  forty-eight  hours  before.  Midshipman 
Lovell  and  four  men  composed  his  party.  He  reports  that,  pursuing  carefully 
his  route  to  the  northward,  he  came  upon  a  partially-overturned  cairn,  of  large 
dimensions,  on  the  beach  a  few  miles  south  of  Cape  Bowden.  Upon  strict  ex- 
amination, it  appeared  to  have  been  erected  as  a  place  of  depot  of  provisions. 
No  clew  could  be  found  within  it  or  around  as  to  the  persons  who  built  it,  neither 
could  its  age  be  arrived  at. 

At  two  P.M.  of  the  28th,  reached  Cape  Bowden  without  further  discovery. 
Erecting  a  cairn,  containing  the  information  that  would  prove  useful  to  a  dis- 
tressed party,  he  commenced  his  journey  back. 

Until  the  3d  day  of  September,  we  were  detained  at  this  point  by  the  closing 
in  of  the  ice  from  the  southward,  occasioned  by  strong  northeast  winds,  ac- 
companied with  thick  weather  and  snow.  On  this  day  the  packed  ice  moved 
off  from  the  edge  of  the  fixed  ice,  leaving  a  practicable  lead  to  the  westward, 
into  which  we  at  once  stood.  At  midnight,  when  about  two  thirds  the  way 
across  the  channel,  the  closing  ice  arrested  our  progress.  We  were  in  some 
danger  from  heavy  masses  coming  against  us,  but  both  vessels  passed  the  night 
uninjured.  In  the  evening  of  the  4th  we  were  able  to  make  a  few  more  miles 
westing,  and  the  following  day  we  reached  Barlow's  Inlet.  The  ice  being  im- 
practicable to  the  southward,  we  secured  the  vessels  at  its  entrance.  Tl*  As- 
sistance and  her  steam-tender  were  seen  off  Cape  Hotham,  behind  which  they 
disappeared  in  the  course  of  the  day. 

Barlow's  Inlet  would  €".fford  good  shelter  for  vessels  in  case  of  necessity,  but 
it  would  require  some  cutting  to  get  in  or  out.  The  ice  of  last  winter  stUl  re- 
mained unbroken. 


twi 


OFFICIAL    REPORT. 


497 


A  fresh  breeze  from  the  north  on  the  8th  caused  the  ice  in  tl\o  channel  to  set 
to  the  southward.  It  still  remained,  however,  closely  packed  on  Cape  Hotham. 
On  the  9th,  in  the  morning,  the  wind  shifted  to  the  westward,  an  opening  ap- 
peared, pud  we  at  once  got  under  way.  Passing  Cape  Hotham,  a  lead  was 
seen  along  the  south  side  of  Cornwallis  Island,  into  which,  with  a  head  wind, 
we  worked  slowly,  our  progress  being  much  impeded  by  bay  ice ;  indeed,  it 
brought  us  to  a  dead  stand  more  than  cmco.  The  following  day  we  reached 
Griffith's  Itland,  passing  the  southern  point  of  whicii  the  English  searching  ves- 
sels were  descried  made  fast  to  the  ice  at  a  few  miles  distant.  The  western 
load  closing  at  this  point,  we  were  con\peiled  to  make  fast  also. 

The  ice  was  here  so  very  unfavorai)le  lijr  making  further  progress,  and  the 
season  was  so  far  advanced,  that  it  became  necessary  to  take  future  movements 
into  serious  consideration.  A  consultation  was  had  with  Mr.  Griffin,  and  after 
reviewing  carefully  all  the  circumstances  attending  our  position,  it  was  judged 
that  we  had  not  gained  a  point  from  which  we  could  commenc^e  operations  in 
the  season  of  1851  with  decided  advantages.  Tiierefore,  agreeably  to  my  in- 
structions, I  felt  it  an  imperative  duty  to  extricate  the  vessels  from  the  ice,  and 
return  to  the  United  States. 

The  state  of  the  weather  prevented  our  acting  immediately  upon  ttiis  deci.sion. 

September  11th,  wind  from  the  eastward,  with  fog  and  snow  ;  we  were  kept 
stationary.  Much  bay  ice  forming.  Thermometer  26°.  Early  in  the  morning 
of  the  12th  the  wind  changed  to  the  northwest,  and  increased  rapidly  to  a  heavy 
gale,  which  coming  off,  the  ice  brought  with  it  clouds  of  drift  suow. 

The  Rescue  was  blown  from  her  ice  anchors,  and  went  adrift  so  suddenly 
that  a  boat  and  two  of  her  men  were  left  behind.  She  got  under  sail,  but  the 
wind  was  too  strong  for  her  to  regain  the  ice.  The  driving  snow  soon  hid  her 
from  us.  The  Advance  came  near  meeting  the  same  fate.  The  edge  of  the 
tloe  kept  breaking  away,  and  it  was  with  much  difficulty  that  other  ice  anchors 
could  be  planted  further  in  to  hold  on  by.  The  thermometer  fell  to  8"  ;  mean 
for  the  twenty-four  hours,  14°. 

On  the  morning  of  the  13th,  the  wind  having  moderated  sufficiently,  we  got 
under  way,  an.',  working  our  way  through  some  streams  of  ice,  arrived  in  a  few 
liours  at  GrilTith's  Island,  under  the  lee  of  which  we  found  our  consort,  made 
ft-^it  to  the  e.iore,  where  siie  had  taken  shelter  in  the  gale,  her  crew  having  suf- 
1  red  a  got  1  deal  from  the  inclemency  of  the  weather.  In  bringing  to  under 
the  lee  of  i  tie  island,  she  had  the  misfortune  to  spring  her  rudder,  so  that  on 
joining  u^  it  was  with  much  difficulty  she  could  steer.  To  insure  her  safety 
and  more  rapid  progress,  she  was  taken  in  tow  by  the  Advance,  when  slie  l)ore 
up  witli  a  fine  breeze  from  the  westward.  Off  Cape  Martyr,  we  left  the  English 
squadron  under  Captain  Austin.  About  ten  miles  further  to  the  east,  the  two 
vessels  under  Captain  Penny,  and  that  under  Sir  Jolm  Ross,  were  seen  secured 
near  the  land.  At  8  P  M.  we  had  advanced  as  far  as  Cape  Hotham.  Thence, 
as  far  as  the  increasing  darkness  of  the  night  enabled  us  to  see,  there  was  noth- 
ing to  obstruct  our  progress,  except  the  bay  ice.  This,  with  a  good  breeze,  would 
not  have  impeded  us  nmch  ;  but  unfortunately,  the  wind,  when  it  was  nmst  re- 
quired, failed  us.  The  snow  with  which  the  surface  of  the  water  was  covered 
rapidly  cemented,  and  formed  a  tenacious  coat,  through  which  it  was  imjjossi- 
ble,  with  all  our  appliances,  to  force  the  vessels.  At  8  P.M.  they  came  to  a  dead 
stand,  some  ten  milea  to  the  east  of  Parlow's  Inlet. 


liti 


■'"'»'„.,:P' 


^!^■ 


^flW!?^"^^^ 


498 


COMMANDER    DE     HAVEN    S 


1        <r"     iii.^i 


I    '.i 


■'  I 


The  following  day  the  wind  hauled  to  the  southward,  from  which  quarter  it 
lasted  till  the  19th.  During  this  period  the  young  ice  was  broken,  its  edges 
squeezed  up  into  hummocks,  and  one  floe  overrun  by  anotlier  until  it  all  as- 
sumed the  appearance  of  heavy  ice. 

Th.e  vessels  received  some  heavy  nips  from  it,  but  they  withstood  them  with- 
out injury.  Whenever  a  pool  of  water  made  its  appearance,  every  effort  was 
made  to  reach  it,  in  hopes  it  would  lead  us  into  Beechy  Island,  or  some  other 
place  where  the  vessel  might  be  placed  in  security ;  fo;  the  winter  set,  in  un- 
usually early,  and  the  severity  with  which  it  ccrumenced  forbade  all  hopes  of 
our  being  able  to  return  this  season.  I  now  became  anxious  to  atiain  a  point 
in  the  neighborhood  from  whence,  by  nieans  of  land  ptTties,  h<  the  spring,  a 
goodly  extent  of  Wellington  Channel  might  be  examined. 

In  the  mean  time,  under  the  influence  of  tlie  south  wind,  we  were  being  set 
up  the  channel.  On  the  18th  we  were  above  Cape  Bowden,  the  most  northern 
point  seen  on  this  shore  by  Parry 

The  land  on  both  shores  was  seen  much  further,  and  trended  considerably  to 
the  west  of  north.  To  account  for  this  drift,  the  fixed  ice  of  Wellington  Chan- 
nel, which  we  had  observed  in  passing  to  the  westward,  must  have  been  broken 
up  and  driven  to  the  southward  by  the  heavy  gale  of  the  12th. 

On  the  19th  the  wind  veered  to  the  north,  which  gave  us  a  southerly  set, 
forcing  us  at  the  same  time  witli  the  western  shore.  This  did  not  last  long, 
for  the  next  day  tlie  wind  hauled  again  to  the  south,  and  blew  fresh,  bringing 
the  ice  in  upon  us  with  much  pressure.  At  midnight  it  broke  up  all  around  us, 
so  that  we  had  work  to  maintain  tlie  Advance  in  a  safe  position,  and  keep  her 
from  being  separated  from  her  consort,  which  was  immovably  fixed  in  the 
centre  of  a  large  floe. 

We  continued  to  drift  slowly  to  the  N.N.W.  until  the  22d,  when  our  progress 
appeared  to  be  arrested  by  a  small  low  island,  which  was  discovered  in  tiiat  di- 
rection, about  seven  miles  distant.  A  channel  of  three  or  four  miles  in  width 
separated  it  from  Cornwallis  Island.  This  latter  island,  trending  northwest  from 
our  position,  terminated  abruptly  in  an  elevated  cape,  to  which  I  have  given  the 
name  of  Manning,  after  a  warm  personal  friend  and  ardent  supporter  of  the  ex- 
pedition. Between  Cornwallis  Island  and  some  distant  high  land  visible  in  the 
north,  appeared  a  wide  channel  leading  to  the  westward.  A  dark,  misty-looking 
cloud  which  hung  over  it  (technically  termed  frost  smoke),  was  indicative  of 
much  open  water  in  that  direction. 

This  was  the  direction  to  which  my  instructions,  referring  to  the  investiga- 
tions at  the  National  Observatory  concerning  the  winds  and  currents  of  the 
ocean,  directed  me  to  look  for  open  water. 

Nor  was  the  open  water  the  only  indication  tliat  presented  itself  in  confirma- 
tion of  this  theoretical  conjecture  as  to  a  milder  climate  in  that  direction.  As 
we  entered  Wellington  Channel,  the  signs  of  animal  life  became  m(;re  abundant, 
and  Captain  Penny,  commander  of  one  of  the  English  expeditions,  who  after- 
ward penetrated  on  sledges  much  toward  the  region  of  the  frost  smoke,  much 
further  than  it  was  possible  for  us  to  do  in  our  vessels,  reported  that  he  actually 
arrived  on  the  borders  of  this  open  sea. 

Thus  these  admirably  drawn  instructions,  deriving  arguments  from  the  en- 
larged and  comprehensive  system  of  physical  research,  not  only  pointed  with 
f.mphasid  to  an  unknown  open  sea  into  which  Franklin  had  probably  found  his 


'!,   .  I 


OFFICIAL     REPORT. 


499 


way,  but  directed  me  to  search  for  traces  of  his  expedition  in  the  very  chan- 
nel at  the  entrance  of  which  it  is  now  ascertained  he  had  passed  liis  first 
winter. 

The  direction  in  which  search  with  most  chances  of  success  is  now  to  be 
made  for  the  missing  expedition,  or  for  traces  of  it,  is  no  doubt  in  the  direction 
which  is  so  clearly  pointed  out  in  my  instructions. 

To  the  channel  which  appeared  to  lead  into  the  open  sea  over  which  the 
cloud  of  frost  smoke  hung  as  a  sign,  I  have  given  the  name  of  Maury,  after 
the  distinguished  gentleman  at  the  head  of  our  National  Observatory,  whose 
theory  with  regard  to  an  open  sea  to  the  north  is  likely  to  be  reahzed  through 
this  channel.  To  the  large  mass  of  land  visible  between  N.W.  to  N.N.E.,  I 
gave  the  name  of  Grinnell,  in  honor  of  the  head  and  heart  of  the  man  in 
whose  philanthropic  mind  originated  the  idea  of  this  expedition,  and  to  whose 
munificence  it  owes  its  existence. 

To  a  remarkable  peak  bearing  N.N.E.  from  us,  distant  about  forty  miles,  was 
given  the  name  of  Mount  Franklin.  An  inlet  or  harbor  immediately  to  the 
north  of  Cape  Bowden  was  discovered  by  Mr.  Griffin  in  his  land  excursion 
from  Point  Innes  on  the  27th  of  August,  and  has  received  the  name  of  GTiffi.n 
Met. 

The  small  island  mentioned  before  was  called  Murdaugh's  Island,  after  the 
acting  master  o*"  the  Advance. 

The  eastern  shore  of  Wellington  Channel  appeared  to  run  parallel  with  the 
western,  but  it  became  quite  low,  and  being  covered  with  snow,  could  not  be 
distinguished  with  certainty,  so  that  its  continuity  with  the  high  land  to  the 
north  was  not  ascertained. 

Some  small  pools  of  open  water  appearing  near  us,  an  attempt  was  made 
about  fifty  yards,  but  our  combined  efforts  were  of  no  avail  in  extricating  the 
Rescue  from  her  icy  cradle.  A  change  of  wind  not  only  closed  the  ice  up 
again,  but  threatened  to  give  us  a  severe  nip.  We  unshipped  her  rudder  and 
placed  it  out  of  harm's  way. 

September  23d  was  an  uncomfortable  day.  The  wind  was  from  northeast, 
with  snow.  From  an  early  hour  in  the  morning  the  floes  began  to  be  pressed 
together  with  so  much  force  that  their  edges  were  thrown  up  in  immense  ridges 
of  rugged  hummocks.  The  Advance  was  heavily  nipped  between  two  floes, 
and  the  ice  was  piled  up  so  high  above  the  rail  on  the  starboard  side  as  to 
threaten  to  come  on  board  and  sink  us  with  its  weight.  All  hands  were  occu- 
pied in  keeping  it  out.  The  pressure  and  commotion  did  not  cease  till  near 
midnight,  when  we  were  very  glad  to  have  a  respite  from  our  labors  and  fears. 
The  next  day  we  were  threatened  with  a  similar  scene,  but  it  fortunately  ceased 
in  a  short  time. 

For  the  remainder  of  September  and  until  the  4th  of  October,  the  vessels 
drifted  but  little.  The  winds  were  very  light,  the  thermometer  fell  to  minus  12, 
and  ice  formed  over  the  pools  in  sight  sufficiently  strong  to  travel  upon. 

We  were  now  strongly  impressed  with  the  belief  that  the  ice  had  become 
fixed  for  the  winter,  and  that  we  should  be  able  to  send  out  traveling  parties 
from  the  advanced  position  for  the  examination  of  the  lands  to  the  northward. 
Stimulated  by  this  fair  prospect,  another  attempt  was  made  to  reach  the  shore, 
in  order  to  establish  a  depot  of  provisions  at  or  near  Cape  Manning,  which 
would  materially  facilitate  the  progress  of  our  parties  in  the  spring ;  but  the  ice 


t 


i,i|'r:ic 


lis:'..-. 


'.itiilli)!' 


ijrr'i't 


'■  I II  s 


;:f  '■'' 


w 

1 

1 

11 

1 

1 

1 

■i: 

•M|l 

,^  1,  i!  ij 

d 

m 

[0 


%': 


I^r., 


JrU 


'Am 


500 


COMMANDER     DE     HAVEN    S 


&A 


%  h '  4 


ii  It 


""M    IV 


was  still  found  to  be  detached  from  the  shore,  and  a  narrow  lane  of  water  cut 
us  from  it. 

During  the  interval  of  comparative  quiet,  preliminaiy  measures  were  taken 
for  heating  the  Advance,  and  increasing  her  quarters,  so  as  to  accommodate 
the  officers  and  crews  of  both  vessels.  No  stoves  had  as  yet  been  used  in 
either  vessel ;  indeed,  they  could  not  well  be  put  up  without  placing  a  large 
quantity  of  stores  and  fuel  upon  the  ice.  The  attempt  was  made  to  do  this,  but 
a  sudden  crack  in  the  floe  where  it  appeared  strongest,  causing  the  loss  of  sev- 
eral tons  of  coal,  convinced  us  that  it  was  not  yet  safe  to  do  so.  It  was  not 
until  the  20th  of  October  we  got  fires  below.  Ten  days  later,  the  housinr  cloth 
wa«  put  over,  and  the  officers  and  crew  of  the  Rescue  ordered  on  board  the  Ad- 
vance for  the  winter.  Room  was  found  on  the  deck  of  the  Rescue  for  many  of 
the  provisions  removed  from  the  hold  of  this  vessel.  Still,  a  large  quantity  had 
to  be  placed  on  the  ice. 

The  absence  of  fires  below  had  caused  much  discomfort  to  all  hands  ever 
since  the  beginning  of  September,  not  so  much  from  the  low  temperature,  as 
from  the  accumulation  of  moisture  by  condensation,  wliich  congealed  as  .he 
temperature  decreased,  and  covered  the  wood-work  of  our  apartments  with  ice. 
This  state  of  things  soon  began  to  work  its  effect  upon  the  health  of  the  crews. 
Several  cases  of  scurvy  appeared  among  them,  and,  notwithstanding  the  inde- 
fatigal)Ie  attention  and  active  treatment  resorted  to  by  the  medical  officers,  it 
could  not  be  eradicated  ;  its  progress,  however,  was  checked. 

All  through  October  and  November  we  were  drifted  to  and  fro  by  the  chang- 
ing wind,  but  never  passing  out  of  Wellington  Channel.  On  the  1st  of  No- 
vember, the  new  ice  had  attained  the  thickness  of  thirty-seven  inches.  Still, 
frequent  breaks  would  occur  in  it,  often  in  fearful  proximity  to  the  vessels. 
Hummocks,  consisting  of  massive,  granite-like  blocks,  would  be  thrown  up  to 
the  height  of  twenty,  and  even  thirty  feet.  This  action  in  the  ice  was  accom- 
panied with  a  variety  of  sounds  impossible  to  b*^  described,  but  when  heard 
never  failed  to  carry  a  feeling  of  awe  into  the  stunu  st  hearts.  In  the  stillness 
of  an  Arctic  night,  they  could  be  heard  several  miles,  and  often  was  the  rest  of 
all  hands  disturbed  by  them. 

To  guard  against  the  worst  that  could  happen  to  us — the  destruction  of  the 
vessels — the  boats  were  prepared  and  sledges  built.  Thirty  days'  provisions 
were  placed  in  for  all  hands,  together  with  tents  and  blanket  bags  for  sleeping  in. 
Besides  this,  each  man  and  officer  had  his  knapsack  containing  an  extra  suit 
of  clothes.    These  were  all  kept  in  readiness  for  use  at  a  moment's  notice. 

For  the  sake  of  wholesome  exercise,  as  well  as  to  inure  the  people  to  ice- 
traveling,  frequent  excursions  were  made  with  our  laden  sledges.  The  offi- 
cers usually  took  the  lead  at  the  drag  ropes  ;  and  they,  as  well  as  the  men,  un- 
derwent the  labor  of  surmounting  tlie  rugged  hummocks  with  great  cheerful- 
ness and  zeal.  Notwithstanding  the  low  temperature,  all  hands  usually  re- 
turned in  a  profuse  perspiration.  We  had  also  other  sources  of  exercise  and 
amusements,  such  as  foot-ball,  skating,  sliding,  racing,  wi'h  theatrical  repre- 
sentations on  holidays  and  national  anniversaries.  The. '  amusements  were 
continued  throughout  the  winter,  and  contributed  very  mir  erially  to  the  cheer- 
fulness and  general  good  health  of  all  hands. 

The  drift  had  set  us  gradually  to  the  southeast,  until  we  were  about  five 
miles  to  the  southwest  of  Beechy  Island      In  this  position  we   remained 


jvater  cut 

ere  taken 
imniodate 
1  used  in 
g  a  large 
3  this,  but 
ss  of  sev- 
t  was  not 
si  I  IT  cloth 
rd  ilie  Ad- 
r  many  of 
antity  had 

ands  ever 
irature,  as 
ed  as  -he 
s  with  ice. 
the  crews, 
r  the  inde- 
ofRcera,  it 

the  chang- 
1st  of  No- 
les.  Still, 
le  vessels, 
own  up  to 
as  aceom- 
hen  heard 
le  stillness 
he  rest  of 

tion  of  the 
provisions 
leaping  in. 
extra  suit 
notice, 
pie  to  ice- 
The  ofli- 
men,  un- 
c'heorful- 
sually  re- 
rcise  and 
cal  repre- 
ents  were 
the  cheer- 
about  five 
remained 


OFFICIAL     REPORT. 


501 


comparatively  stationary  about  a  week.  We  once  more  began  to  entertain  a 
hope  that  we  had  become  fixed  for  the  winter  ;  but  it  proved  a  vain  one,  for  on 
the  last  day  of  November  a  strong  wind  from  the  westward  set  in,  with  thick, 
snowy  weather.  This  wind  created  an  immediate  movement  in  the  ice.  Sev- 
eral fractures  took  place  near  us,  and  many  heavy  hummocks  were  thrown  up. 
The  floe  in  which  our  vessels  were  imbedded  was  being  rapidly  encroached 
upon,  so  that  we  were  in  momentary  fear  of  the  ice  breaking  from  around  them, 
and  that  they  would  be  once  more  broken  out  and  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  crashing  floes. 

On  the  following  day  (the  1st  of  December)  the  weather  cleared  off,  and  the 
few  hours  of  twilight  which  we  had  about  noon  enabled  us  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the 
land.    As  well  as  we  could  make  it  out,  we  appeared  to  be  off  Gascoigne  Inlet. 

We  were  now  clear  of  Wellington  Channel,  and  in  the  fair  way  of  Lancaster 
Sound,  to  be  set  either  up  or  down,  at  the  mercy  of  the  prevailing  winds  and 
currents.  We  were  not  long  left  in  doubt  as  to  the  direction  we  had  to  pur- 
sue. The  winds  prevailed  from  the  westward,  and  our  drift  was  steady  and 
rapid  toward  the  mouth  of  the  sound. 

The  prospect  before  us  was  now  any  thing  but  cheering.  We  were  deprived 
of  our  last  fond  hope,  that  of  becoming  fixed  in  some  position  whence  opera- 
tions could  be  carried  on  by  means  of  traveling  parties  in  the  spring.  The  ves- 
sels were  fast  being  set  out  of  the  region  of  search. 

Nor  was  this  our  only  source  of  imeasiness.  The  line  of  our  drift  was  from 
two  to  five  miles  from  the  north  shore,  and  whenever  the  moving  ice  mot  with 
any  of  the  capes  or  projecting  points  of  land,  the  obstruction  would  cause  frac- 
tures in  it,  extending  off  to  and  far  beyond  us. 

Cape  Hurd  was  the  first  and  most  prominent  point ;  we  were  but  two  miles 
from  it  on  the  3d  of  December.  Nearly  all  day  the  ice  was  both  seen  and  heard 
to  be  in  constant  motion  at  no  great  distance  from  us.  In  the  evening  a  crack 
in  our  floe  took  place  not  more  than  twenty-five  yards  ahead  of  tiie  Advance. 
It  opened  in  the  course  of  the  evening  to  the  width  of  one  hundred  yards. 

No  further  disturbance  took  place  until  noon  of  the  5th,  when  we  were  some- 
what startled  by  the  familiar  and  unmistakable  sound  of  the  ice  grinding  against 
the  side  of  the  ship.  Going  on  deck,  I  perceived  that  another  crack  had  taken 
place,  passing  along  the  length  of  the  vessel. 

It  did  not  open  more  than  a  foot :  this,  however,  was  sufficient  to  liberate 
the  vessel,  and  she  rose  several  inches  bodily,  having  become  more  buoyant 
since  she  froze  in.  The  following  day,  in  the  evening,  the  crack  opened  sev- 
eral yards,  leaving  the  sides  of  the  Advance  entirely  free  ;  and  she  was  once 
more  supported  by  and  rode  in  her  own  element.  We  were  not.  though,  by 
any  means,  in  a  pleasant  situation.  The  floes  were  considerably  hrok<  n  in  all 
directions  around  us,  and  ope  crack  had  taken  place  between  the  two  vessels. 
The  Rescue  was  not  disturbed  in  her  bed  of  ice. 

December  7th,  at  8  A.M.,  the  crack  in  which  we  were  had  opened  and  formed 
a  lane  of  water  fifty-six  feet  wide,  communicating  ahead  at  the  distam^e  of 
sixty  feet  with  ice  of  about  one  foot  in  thickness,  which  had  formed  since  the 
ad.  The  vessel  was  secured  to  the  largest  floe  near  us  (that  on  which  our 
spare  stores  were  deposited).  At  noon  the  ice  was  again  in  motion,  and  began 
f.o  close,  affording  us  the  pleasant  prospect  of  an  inevitable  "  nij)"  between  two 
floes  of  the  heaviest  kind.     In  a  siiort  time  the  prominent  points  took  our  side, 


:i!:..,.i;i. 


m. 


■:;:'!  ( 


-.-f  i:'^l<i;.>vh,ai-i;-i>j.-^»;_.. 


.4 


l);,-i 


502 


COMMANDER    DE     HAVEN    S 


on  the  starboard  just  about  the  main-rigging,  and  on  the  port  under  the  counter 
and  at  the  fore-rigging ;  thus  bringing  three  points  of  pressure  in  such  a  posi- 
tion that  it  must  have  proved  fatal  to  a  larger  or  less  strengthened  vessel. 

The  Advance,  however,  stood  it  bravely.  After  trembling  and  groaning  in 
every  joint,  the  ice  passed  under  and  raised  her  about  two  and  a  half  feet. 
She  was  let  down  again  for  a  moment,  and  then  her  stern  was  raised  about 
five  feet.  Her  bows  being  unsupported,  were  depressed  almost  as  much.  In 
this  uncomfortable  position  we  remained.  The  wind  blew  a  gale  from  the 
eastward,  and  the  ice  all  around  was  in  dreadful  commotion,  excepting,  fortu- 
nately, that  in  immediate  contact  with  us.  The  commotion  in  the  ice  continued 
all  through  the  night,  and  we  were  in  momentary  expectation  of  witnessing 
the  destruction  of  br  h  vessels.  The  easterly  gale  had  set  us  some  two  or  three 
miles  to  the  west. 

As  soon  as  it  was  light  enough  to  see  on  the  9th,  it  was  discovered  that  the 
heavy  ice  in  which  the  Rescue  had  been  imbedded  for  so  long  a  time  was 
entirely  broken  up,  and  piled  up  around  her  in  massive  hummocks.  On  her 
pumps  being  sounded,  I  was  gratified  to  learn  that  she  remained  tight,  notwith- 
standing the  immense  straining  and  pressure  she  must  have  endured. 

During  this  period  of  trial,  as  well  as  in  all  former  and  subsequent  ones,  I 
could  not  avoid  being  struck  with  the  calmness  and  decision  of  the  officers,  as 
well  as  the  subordination  and  good  conduct  of  the  men,  without  an  exception. 
Each  one  knew  the  imminence  of  the  peril  that  surrounded  us,  and  was  pre- 
pared to  abide  it  with  a  stout  heart.  There  was  no  noise,  no  confusion.  I  did 
not  detect,  even  in  the  moment  when  the  destruction  of  the  vessels  seemed  in- 
evitable, a  single  desponding  look  among  the  whole  crew ;  on  the  contrary,  each 
one  seemed  resolved  to  do  his  whole  duty,  and  every  thing  went  on  cheerily 
and  bravely. 

For  my  own  part,  I  had  become  quite  an  invahd,  so  much  so  as  to  prevent 
my  taking  an  active  part  in  the  duties  of  the  vessel,  as  I  always  had  done,  or 
even  from  incurring  the  exposure  necessary  to  proper  exercise.  However,  I 
felt  no  apprehension  that  the  vessel  would  not  be  properly  taken  care  of,  for  I 
had  perfect  confidence  in  one  and  all  by  whom  I  was  surrounded.  I  knew  them 
to  be  equal  to  any  emergency ;  but  I  felt  under  special  obligations  to  the  gal- 
lant commander  of  the  Rescue  for  the  efficient  aid  he  rendered  me.  With 
the  kindest  consideration  and  most  cheerful  alacrity,  he  vcdunteered  to  perform 
the  executive  duties  during  the  winter,  and  relieve  me  from  every  thing  that 
might  tend  in  the  least  to  retard  my  recover} . 

During  the  remainder  of  December  the  ice  remained  quiet  immediately  around 
us,  and  breaks  were  all  strongly  cemented  by  new  ice.  In  our  neighborhood, 
however,  cracks  were  daily  visible.  Our  drift  to  the  eastward  averaged  nearly 
six  miles  per  day,  so  that  on  the  last  of  the  month  we  were  at  the  entrance  of 
the  sound.  Cape  Osborn  bearing  north  from  us. 

.   January,  1851.  On  passing  out  of  the  sound,  and  opening  Baffin's  Bay,  to  the 
north  was  seen  a  dark  horizon,  indicating  much  open  water  in  that  direction. 

On  the  11th  a  crack  took  place  between  us  and  the  Rescue,  passing  close 
under  our  stern.  It  opened,  and  formed  a  lane  ol  water  eighty  feet  wide.  In 
the  afternoon  the  floes  began  to  move,  the  lane  was  closed  up,  and  the  edges 
of  the  ice  coming  in  contact  with  so  much  pressure,  threatened  the  demolition 
of  the  narrow  space  which  separated  us  from  the  line  of  fracture.     Fortunately 


the  counter 
luch  a  posi- 
vessel. 
groaning  in 
a  half  feet, 
aised  about 

much.  In 
e  from  the 
Jting,  fortu- 
e  continued 

witnessing 
wo  or  three 

•ed  that  the 

1  time  was 

Ls.    On  her 

ht,  notwith- 

Bd. 

lent  ones,  I 

officers,  as 
1  exception, 
id  was  pre- 
ision.    I  did 

seemed  in- 
ntrary,  each 
on  cheerily 

to  prevent 
ad  done,  or 
However,  I 
ire  of,  for  I 
knew  them 

to  the  gal- 
me.    With 

to  perform 

thing  that 

tely  around 
ghborhood, 
god  nearly 
utrance  of 

Bay,  to  the 
Jirection. 
ssing  close 
wide.  In 
the  edges 
demolition 
'ortunately 


OFFICIAL    REPORT. 


503 


the  floes  again  separated,  and  assumed  a  motion  by  which  the  Rescue  passed 
from  our  stem  to  the  port  bow,  and  increased  her  distance  from  us  700  yards, 
where  she  came  to  a  stand.  Our  stores  that  were  on  the  ice  were  on  the  same 
side  of  the  cracks  as  the  Rescue,  and  of  course  were  carried  with  her. 

The  following  day  the  ice  remained  quiet ;  but  soon  after  midnight  on  the 
13th,  a  gale  having  sprung  up  from  the  westward,  it  once  more  got  into  violent 
motion.  The  young  ice  in  the  crack  near  our  stern  was  soon  broken  up,  the 
edges  of  the  thick  ice  came  in  contact,  and  fearful  pressures  took  place,  forcing 
up  a  line  of  hummocks  which  approached  within  ten  feet  of  our  stern.  The 
vessel  trembled  and  complained  a  great  deal. 

At  last  the  floe  broke  up  around  us  into  many  pieces,  and  became  detached 
from  the  sides  of  the  vessel.  The  scene  of  frightful  commotion  lasted  until 
4  A.M.  Every  moment  I  expected  the  vessel  would  be  crushed  or  overwhelm- 
ed by  the  massive  ice  forced  up  far  above  our  bulwarks.  The  Rescue  being 
further  removed  on  the  other  side  of  the  crack  from  the  line  of  crushing,  and 
being  firmly  imbedded  in  heavy  ice,  I  was  in  hopes  would  remain  undisturbed. 
This  was  not  the  case ;  for,  on  sending  to  her  as  soon  as  it  was  light  enough 
to  see,  the  floe  was  found  to  be  broken  away  entirely  up  to  her  bows,  and  there 
formed  into  such  high  hummocks  that  her  bowsprit  was  broken  off,  together 
with  her  head,  and  all  the  light  wood-work  about  it.  Had  the  action  of  the  ice 
continued  much  longer  she  must  have  been  destroyed. 

We  had  the  inisfortune  to  find  sad  havoc  had  been  made  among  the  stores 
and  provisions  left  on  the  ice  ;  and  few  barrels  were  recovered,  but  a  large 
portion  were  crushed  and  had  disappeared. 

On  the  morning  of  the  14th  there  was  r>gain  some  motion  in  the  floes.  That 
on  the  port  side  moved  off  from  the  vessel  two  or  three  feet,  and  there  became 
stationary.  This  left  the  vessel  entirely  detached  from  the  ice  round  the  wa- 
ter-line, and  it  was  expected  she  would  once  more  resume  an  upright  position. 
In  this,  however,  we  were  disappointed,  for  she  remained  with  her  stern  ele- 
vated, and  a  considerable  list  to  starboard ;  being  held  in  this  uncomfortable 
position  by  the  heavy  masses  which  had  been  forced  under  her  bottom.  She 
retained  this  position  until  she  finally  broke  out  in  the  spring. 

We  were  now  fully  launched  into  Baffin's  Bay,  and  our  line  of  drift  began  to 
be  more  southerly,  assuming  a  direction  nearly  parallel  with  the  western  shore 
of  the  bay  at  a  distance  of  from  forty  to  seventy  miles  from  it. 

After  an  absence  of  eighty-seven  days,  the  sun,  on  the  29th  of  January,  rose 
his  whole  diameter  above  the  southern  horizon,  and  remained  visible  more  than 
an  hour.  All  hands  gave  vent  to  delight,  on  seeing  an  old  friend  again,  in  three 
hearty  cheers. 

The  length  of  the  days  now  went  on  increasing  rapidly,  but  no  warmth  was 
yet  experienced  from  the  sun's  rays ;  on  the  contrary,  the  cold  became  more 
intense.  Mercury  became  congealed  in  February,  also  in  March,  which  did  not 
occur  at  any  other  period  during  the  winter. 

A  very  low  temperature  was  invariably  accompanied  with  clear  and  calm 
weather,  so  that  our  coldest  days  were  perhaps  the  most  pleasant.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  wind,  we  could  take  exercise  in  the  open  air  without  feeling  any  in- 
convenience from  the  cold.  But  with  a  strong  wind  blowing,  it  was  dangerous 
to  be  exposed  to  its  chilling  blasts  for  any  length  of  time,  even  when  the  ther- 
mometer indicated  a  comparatively  moderate  degree  of  temperature. 


;  '■  .lift 


•...|l. 


lil!!''i:'3J'- 


)■ 


iii:  i 


ir-xt' 


III 


i     ^ 


•■■'i 


504 


COMMANDER     DE     HAVEN    3 


The  ice  around  the  vessels  soon  became  again  cemented  and  fixed,  and  no 
other  rupture  was  experieneed  until  it  finally  hrnke  up  in  llie  spring  and  allowed 
us  to  escape.  Still  we  kept  driving  to  the  south  ward  along  with  the  whole 
mass.  Open  lanes  of  water  were  vioible  at  all  times  from  aloft ;  sometimes 
they  w(»uld  be  formed  within  a  mile  or  two  of  us.  ISarwhals,  seals,  am!  dove- 
kies  were  seen  in  them.  Our  sportsmen  were  not  expert  eao-.igh  to  procure 
any,  except  a  few  of  the  latter,  although  they  were  indefatigable  in  their  ex- 
ertions to  do  so.  Bears  would  frecjuently  be  seen  prowling  about ;  only  two 
were  killed  during  the  winter;  others  were  wounded,  but  made  their  escape. 
A  few  of  us  thought  their  flesh  very  palatable  and  wholesome ;  but  the  major- 
ity utterly  rejected  it.  The  flesh  of  the  seal,  "hen  it  could  be  obtained,  was 
received  with  more  favor. 

As  the  season  advanced,  the  cases  of  scurvy  became  more  numerous,  yet  they 
were  all  kept  under  control  by  the  unwearied  attention  and  skillful  treatment 
of  the  medical  orticers.  My  thanks  are  due  to  them,  especially  to  Passed  As- 
sistant Surgeon  Kane,  the  senior  medical  officer  of  the  expedition.  I  often  had 
occasion  to  consult  him  concerning  the  hygiene  of  the  crew  ;  and  it  is  in  a  great 
measure  owing  to  the  advice  which  he  gave  and  the  expedients  which  he  rec- 
onmiended,  that  the  expedition  was  enabled  to  return  without  the  loss  of  one 
man.  By  the  latter  end  of  February  the  ice  had  become  sufficiently  thick  to 
enable  us  to  build  a  trench  around  the  stern  of  the  Rescue,  sufliciently  deep 
to  ascertain  the  extent  of  the  injury  she  had  received  in  the  gale  at  Griffith's 
Island. 

It  was  not  found  to  be  material ;  the  upper  gudgeon  alone  had  been  wrenched 
from  the  stern  post.  It  was  adjusted,  and  the  rudder  repaired  in  readiness  for 
shipping  when  it  should  be  required.  A  new  bowsprit  was  also  made  for  her 
out  of  the  few  spare  spars  we  had  left,  and  every  thing  made  seaworthy  in  both 
vessels  before  the  breaking  up  of  the  ice. 

On  the  1st  of  April  a  hole  was  cut  in  some  ice  that  had  been  forming  since 
our  first  hesetment  in  September  ;  it  was  found  to  have  attained  the  thickness 
of  seven  feet  two  inches. 

In  this  month  (April)  the  amelioration  of  the  temperature  became  quite  sens- 
ible. All  hands  were  kept  at  work,  cutting  and  sawing  the  ice  around  the 
vessels,  in  order  to  allow  them  to  float  once  mo;  .  With  the  Rescue  they 
succeeded,  after  much  labor,  in  attaining  this  object ;  but  around  the  stern  of 
the  Advance  the  ice  was  so  thick  that  our  thirteen-fect  saw  was  too  short 
to  pass  through  it.  Her  bows  and  sides,  as  far  aft  as  the  gangway,  were  lib- 
erated. 

After  making  some  alteration  in  the  Rescue  for  the  better  accommodation 
of  her  crew,  and  fires  being  lighted  on  board  of  her  several  days  previous,  to  re- 
move tlie  ice  and  dampness  which  had  a(!cumulated  during  the  winter,  both 
officers  and  crew  were  transferred  to  her  on  the  24th  of  Aprd.  The  stores  of 
this  vessel,  which  had  been  taken  out,  were  restored,  the  housing  cloth  taken 
off,  and  the  vessel  made  in  every  respect  ready  fui  tea.  There  was  little  pros- 
pect, however,  of  our  being  able  to  reach  the  desired  element  very  soon.  The 
nearest  water  was  a  narrow  lane  more  than  two  miles  distant.  To  cut  through 
the  ice  which  intervened  would  have  been  next  to  impossible.  Beyond  this 
lane,  from  the  mast-head,  nothing  but  interminable  floes  could  be  seen.  It  was 
thought  best  to  wait  in  patience,  and  allow  nature  to  work  for  us. 


I  ff  ,..i 


™  I":' 


OFFICIAL     REPORT. 


505 


In  May  the  noon-day  sun  began  to  take  efTect  upon  tho  snow  which  covered 
the  ice ;  tint  surface  of  tiie  floes  became  watery,  and  difficult  to  waliv  over. 
Still,  the  dissolution  was  so  slow  in  comparison  with  the  mass  to  be  dissolved, 
that  it  must  have  taken  us  a  long  period  to  ticconie  liberated  from  this  cause 
alone.  More  was  expected  from  our  southerly  drift,  which  still  continued,  and 
must  soon  carry  us  into  a  milder  climate  and  open  sea. 

On  the  19th  of  May  the  land  about  Cape  Searle  was  made  out,  the  first  that 
we  had  seen  since  passing  Cape  Walter  Bathurst,  about  the  20th  of  January. 
A  few  days  later  we  were  off"  Cape  Walsingham,  and  on  the  27th  passed  out 
»)f  the  Arctic  Zone. 

June  6th,  a  moderate  breeze  from  southeast,  with  pleasant  weather;  ther- 
mometer up  to  40^  at  noon,  and  altogether  quite  a  warm  and  melting  day.  Dur- 
ing the  morning  a  peculiar  crackling  sound  was  heard  on  the  fioe.  I  was  in- 
clined to  impute  it  to  the  settling  of  the  snow  drifts  as  they  were  acted  upon 
Ity  the  sun  ;  but  in  the  afternoon,  about  five  o'clock,  the  puzzle  was  solved  very 
lucidly,  and  to  the  exceeding  satisfaction  of  all  hands.  A  crack  in  the  floe  took 
place  between  us  and  the  Rescue,  and  in  a  few  minutes  thereafter  the  whole 
immense  field  in  which  we  had  been  imbedded  for  so  many  months  was  rent 
m  all  directions,  leaving  not  a  piece  exceeding  one  hundred  yards  in  diame- 
ter. This  rupture  was  not  accompanied  with  any  noise.  The  Rescue  was 
entirely  liberated,  the  Advance  only  partially.  Tlie  ice  in  which  her  afler-part 
was  imbedded  still  adhered  to  her  from  the  main  chains  aft,  keeping  her  stern 
elevated  in  its  unsightly  position.  The  pack  (as  it  may  now  be  called)  be- 
came quite  loose,  and  but  for  our  pertinacious  friend  acting  as  an  immense  drag 
upon  us,  we  might  have  made  some  headway  in  any  desired  direction.  All  our 
efforts  were  now  turned  to  getting  rid  of  it.  Witii  saws,  axes,  and  crowbars 
the  people  went  to  work  with  a  right  good  will,  and  after  hard  labor  for  forty- 
eight  hours,  succeeded.  The  vessel  was  again  afloat,  and  she  righted.  The 
joy  of  all  hands  vented  itself  spontaneously  in  three  hearty  cheers.  The  after- 
pyrt  of  tlio  false  keel  was  gone,  being  carried  away  by  the  ice.  The  loss  of  it, 
however,  I  was  glad  to  perceive,  did  not  materially  affect  the  sailing  or  working 
(lualities  of  the  vessel.  The  rudders  were  shipped,  and  were  once  more  ready 
to  move,  as  efficient  as  on  the  day  we  left  New  York. 

Steering  to  the  southeast,  and  working  slowly  through  the  loose  but  heavy 
pack,  on  the  9tli  we  parted  from  the  Rescue  in  a  dense  fog,  she  taking  a  dif- 
ferent lead  from  the  one  the  Advance  was  pursuing. 

On  the  morning  of  the  10th,  with  a  fresh  breeze  from  the  north,  under  a  press 
of  sail,  we  fi)rced  away  into  an  open  and  clear  sea,  in  latitude  65°  30',  about 
thirty-five  miles  from  the  spot  in  which  we  were  liberated. 

The  wind,  which  in  the  ice  was  merely  fresh,  proved  to  be  in  clear  water  a 
gale,  with  a  heavy  sea  running.  Through  this  we  labored  until  the  next  morn- 
ing.   When  it  moderated,  the  coast  of  Greenland  was  in  sight. 

Our  course  was  now  directed  for  the  Whale-fish  Islands  (the  place  of  ren- 
dezvous appointed  for  our  consort),  which  we  reached  on  the  16th,  not,  how- 
ever, without  having  some  difficulty  in  getting  through  the  unusual  number 
of  bergs  which  lined  the  coa.st.  In  an  encounter  with  one,  we  lost  a  studding- 
sail  boom. 

I  had  two  objects  in  visiting  these  islands,  that  of  verifying  our  chronometers 
and  to  recruit  our  somewhat  debilitated  crews.    The  latter  object  I  learned,  on 


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IMAGE  EVALUATION 
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WMSTM.N.Y.  USIO 

(7f  6)  •72-4503 


506 


COMMANDER     DE     HAVEN   S 


arriving,  could  be  much  better  obtained,  and  the  former  quite  as  well,  at  Lievc- 
ly,  on  Disco  Island,  for  which  place  I  bore  up,  leaving  orders  for  the  Rescue  to 
follow  us.    We  arrived  on  the  17th,  and  the  Rescue  joined  us  the  day  after. 

The  crews  were  indulged  with  a  run  on  shore  every  day  that  we  remained, 
which  they  enjoyed  exceedingly  after  their  tedious  winter  confinement.  This 
recreation,  together  with  a  few  vegetables  of  an  antiscorbutic  character  which 
were  obtained,  was  of  much  benefit  to  them.  There  were  no  fresh  provisions 
to  be  had  here  at  this  season  of  the  year.  Fortunately,  one  of  the  Danish  com- 
pany's vessels  arrived  from  Copenhagen  while  we  remained,  and  from  her  we 
obtained  a  few  articles  that  we  stood  much  in  need  of  The  company's  store 
was  nearly  exhausted,  but  what  remained  was  kindly  placed  at  our  disposal. 

On  the  22d,  our  crews  being  much  invigorated  by  their  exercise  on  terra 
firma,  and  the  few  still  affected  with  the  scurvy  being  in  a  state  of  convales- 
cence, we  got  under  way,  with  the  intention  of  prosecuting  the  object  of  the 
expedition  for  one  season  more,  at  least. 

From  the  statement  made  to  us  at  Lievely,  the  last  winter  had  been  an  ex- 
traordinary one.  The  winds  had  prevailed  to  an  unusual  degree  from  the  north- 
west, and  the  ice  was  not  at  any  time  fixed.  The  whaling  fleet  had  passed  to 
the  northward  previous  to  our  arrival. 

On  the  24th  we  met  with  some  obstruction  from  the  ice  off  Hare  Island, 
and  on  the  following  day  our  progress  was  completely  arrested  by  it  at  Storoe 
Island.  In  seeking  for  a  passage  've  got  beset  in  a  pack  near  the  lee  shore, 
near  to  which  we  were  carried  by  the  drifting  ice,  and  narrowly  escaped  being 
driven  on  the  rocks.  After  getting  out  of  this  difliculty,  we  availed  ourselves 
of  every  opening  in  the  ice,  and  worked  slowly  to  the  northward,  near  the  shore. 

On  the  Ist  of  July  we  were  off  the  Danish  port  and  settlement  of  Proven, 
and  as  the  condition  of  the  ice  rendered  further  progress  at  present  impossible, 
we  went  in  and  anchored  to  wait  for  a  change. 

Here,  again,  some  scurvy  grass  was  collected,  and  the  men  allowed  to  run  on 
shore. 

On  the  3d  we  got  under  way,  and  ran  out  to  look  at  the  ice  ;  but  finding  it 
still  closely  packed,  returned  to  our  anchorage. 

On  the  6th  the  accounts  from  our  look-out  on  the  hill  near  us  were  more  fa- 
vorable. Again  we  got  under  way,  and  finding  the  pack  somewhat  loose,  suc- 
ceeded in  making  some  headway  through  it.  The  following  day  we  got  into 
clear  water,  and  fell  in  with  two  English  whaling  vessels,  the  Pacific  and  Jane. 
To  their  gentlemanly  and  considerate  commanders  we  are  much  indebted  for 
the  supplies  furnished  us,  consisting  of  potatoes,  turnips,  and  other  articles, 
most  acceptable  to  people  in  our  condition.  Much  interesting  news  was  also 
gained  from  them  respecting  important  events  which  had  occurred  since  we 
left  home. 

Their  statements  as  to  the  condition  of  the  ice  to  the  northward  was  any 
thing  l)ut  flattering  to  our  prospects.  They  had  considered  it  so  very  unfavor- 
able as  to  abandon  the  attempt  to  push  through  Melville  Bay,  and  were  now 
on  their  way  to  the  southward. 

On  the  8lh  we  communicated  with  the  settlement  of  Uppernavik.  The  next 
day  two  more  English  whaling  vessels  passed  on  their  way  to  the  southward. 
At  the  same  time,  the  M'Lellan,  of  New  London,  the  only  American  nhaler 
in  Baffin's  Bay,  was  descried,  also  standing  south.    On  communicating  with 


OFFICIAL    REPORT. 


507 


ie  next 
liward. 
'Thaler 
g  with 


her,  we  were  rejoiced  to  And  letters  and  papers  from  home,  transmitted  by  the 
kindness  of  Mr.  Grinnell. 

We  remained  by  the  M'Lellan  several  hours,  in  order  to  close  our  letters 
and  dispatch  them  by  her.  Several  articles  that  we  stood  much  in  need  of 
were  purchased  from  her. 

On  the  10th,  the  Baffin's  Islands  being  in  sight  to  the  north,  we  met  the  re- 
mainder of  the  whaling  fleet  returning.  They  confirmed  the  accounts  given 
us  by  the  Pacific  and  Jane  in  regard  to  the  unfavorable  condition  of  the  ice  for 
an  early  passage  through  Melville  Bay. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  the  vessels  communicated  with,  viz. :  Joseph 
Green,  of  Peterhead ;  Alexander,  of  Dundee ;  Advice,  of  do. ;  Princess  Char- 
lotte, of  do. ;  Horn,  of  do. ;  Ann,  of  Hull ;  Kegalia,  of  Kirkaldy  ;  Chieftain,  of 

do. ;  and  Lord  Gambler,  of .    My  notes  are  unfortunately  at  fault  as  to  the 

names  of  their  enterprising  and  warm-hearted  commanders,  each  of  whom 
vied  with  the  other  in  showering  upon  us  such  articles  as  they  knew  we  must 
be  in  want  of,  consisting  of  potatoes,  turnips,  fresh  beef,  &,c.  My  proposition 
to  compensate  them  they  would  not  entertain  for  a  moment,  and  I  take  this 
occasion  of  making  public  acknowledgment  of  the  valuable  aid  rendered  us,  to 
which  no  doubt  much  of  our  subsequent  good  health  is  owing. 

On  the  nth,  in  attempting  to  run  between  the  Baffin's  Islands,  the  Advance 
grounded  on  a  rocky  shoal.  The  Rescue  barely  escaped  the  same  fate,  by 
hauling  by  the  wind  on  discovering  our  mishap.  Fortunately,  there  was  a  large 
grounded  berg  near,  to  which  our  hawsers  could  be  taken  for  hauling  off,  which 
we  succeeded  in  doing  after  twenty-four  hours'  hard  work.  The  vessel  had 
not,  apparently,  received  any  injury ;  but  a  few  days  later  another  piece  of  her 
false  keel  came  off,  supposed  to  have  been  loosened  on  this  occasion. 

The  ice  to  the  north  of  the  islands  was  too  closely  packed  to  be  penetrated,  and 
the  prevalence  of  southerly  winds  afforded  but  little  prospect  of  a  speedy  opening. 

On  the  16th,  the  searching  yacht  Prince  Albert  succeeded  in  reaching  near 
to  our  position,  after  having  been  in  sight  for  several  days.  Mr.  Kennedy,  her 
commander,  came  on  board  and  brought  us  letters. 

The  berth  in  which  our  vessels  were  made  fast  in  this  place  was  alongside 
of  a  low  tongue  of  an  immense  berg,  which  by  accurate  measurement  towered 
up  to  the  height  of  two  hundred  and  forty-five  feet  above  the  water  level.  It 
was  aground  in  ninety-six  fathoms  water,  thus  making  the  whole  distance  from 
top  to  bottom  eight  hundred  and  twenty-one  feet.  We  saw  many  bergs  equally 
as  large  as  this,  and  somt  much  larger ;  but  this  was  the  only  one  we  had  so 
good  an  opportunity  of  measuring  with  accuracy. 

On  the  ITth  the  ice  opened  a  little,  and  we  got  under  way.  Hence  till  the 
27th,  with  almost  incessant  work,  by  watching  every  opening,  we  continued  to 
make  a  few  miles  each  day,  the  Prince  Albert  keeping  company  with  us.  On 
this  day,  while  running  through  a  narrow  lead,  the  ice  closed  suddenly.  The 
Advance  was  caught  in  a  tiglit  place,  and  pretty  severely  nipped.  We  man- 
aged to  unship  her  rudder,  but  before  it  could  be  secured  the  crashing  ice  car- 
ried it  under.  We  had  lines  fast  to  it,  however,  and  after  the  action  of  the  ice 
ceased,  it  was  extricated  without  injury.  The  Rescue  and  Prince  Albert,  al- 
though near  us,  were  in  better  berths,  and  escaped  the  severe  nip  the  Advance 
received. 

We  were  closely  beset  in  this  position,  and  utterly  unable  to  move  until  the 


II 


hi 


508 


COM.    DE     HAVEN    S    OFFICIAL    REPORT. 


4th  of  August,  when  the  ice  slacking  a  little,  we  succeeded  in  getting  hold  of 
the  land  ice  one  mile  further  to  the  north.  The  Prince  Albert  was  still  in  the 
pack,  a  mile  or  two  to  the  southward  of  us.  Mr.  Kennedy  infonned  me  that 
it  was  his  intention  to  abandon  this  route  and  return  to  the  southward,  as  soon 
as  his  vessel  could  be  extricated  from  her  present  position,  in  hopes  of  finding 
the  ice  more  practicable  in  that  direction.  Some  letters  and  papers  that  he  had 
brought  out  for  the  other  English  searching  vessels,  he  placed  on  board  of  us ; 
unfortunately,  we  were  unable  to  deliver  ihem. 

We  lost  sight  of  the  Prince  Albert  on  the  13th.  For  our  own  part,  there 
was  no  possibility  of  moving  in  any  direction.  The  berth  we  had  taken  up,  un- 
der the  impression  that  it  was  a  good  and  safe  one,  proved  a  regular  trap ;  for 
the  drift  pack  not  only  set  in  upon  us,  but  innumerable  bergs  came  drifting  along 
from  the  southward,  and  stopped  near  our  position,  foftning  a  perfect  wall  around 
us  at  not  more  than  from  two  hundred  to  four  hundred  yards  distance.  Many 
unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  to  get  out.  The  winds  were  light,  and  all 
motion  in  the  ice  had  apparently  ceased.  The  young  ice,  too,  began  to  form 
rapidly,  and  was  only  prevented  from  cementing  permanently  together  the 
broken  masses  around  us  by  the  frequent  undulations  occasioned  by  the  over- 
turning or  falling  to  pieces  of  the  neighboring  bergs. 

My  anxiety  daily  increased  at  the  prospect  of  being  obliged  to  spend  another 
winter  in  a  similar,  if  not  woise  situation,  than  was  that  of  the  last. 

On  the  18th  the  ice  was  somewhat  looser.  We  immediately  took  advantage 
of  it,  and  managed  to  And  an  opening  between  the  large  bergs  sufticiently  wide 
to  admit  the  passage  of  the  vessels.  Outside  the  bergs  we  had  open  water 
enough  to  work  in. 

We  stood  to  the  northwest,  but  the  lead  closing  at  the  distance  of  a  few 
miles,  and  the  ice  appearing  as  unfavorable  as  ever,  I  did  not  deem  it  prudent 
to  run  the  risk  of  besetment  again  at  this  late  period  of  the  season,  and  con-  • 
sidering  that  even  if  successful  in  crossing  the  pack,  it  would  be  too  late  to 
hope  to  attain  a  point  on  the  route  of  search  as  far  as  we  had  been  last  year, 
therefore,  in  obedience  to  that  clause  in  my  instructions  which  says,  "  You  are 
especially  enjoined  not  to  spend,  if  it  can  be  avoided,  more  than  one  winter  in 
the  Arctic  regions ;"  accordingly,  with  sad  hearts  that  our  labors  had  served  to 
throw  so  little  light  upon  the  object  of  our  search,  it  was  resolved  to  give  it  up 
and  return  to  the  United  States. 

We  therefore  retraced  our  steps  to  the  southward.  The  ice  that  had  so  much 
impeded  our  progress  had  entirely  disappeared.  We  touched  for  refreshment 
by  the  way  at  some  of  the  settlements  on  the  coast  of  Greenland,  where  we 
were  most  kindly  and  hospitably  received  by  the  Danish  authorities. 

Leaving  Holsteinberg  on  the  6th  of  September  for  New  York,  the  two  vessels 
were  separated  in  a  gale  to  the  southward  of  Cape  Farewell.  The  Advance  ar- 
rived on  the  30th  ultimo,  and  the  Rescue  on  the  7th  instant,  with  grateful  hearts 
from  all  on  board  to  a  kind  and  superintending  Providence  for  our  safe  deliv- 
erance from  danger,  shipwreck,  and  disaster  during  so  perilous  a  voyage. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be,  sir,  your  obedient  servant, 
(Signed)         Edwin  J.  De  Haven,  Lieut,  commanding  Arctic  Expedition. 

To  the  Honorable  William  A.  Graham,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Washington. 


METEOROLOGICAL    ABSTRACT. 


509 


c. 

METEOROLOGICAL  ABSTRACT. 

The  meteorological  abstract  was  prepared  from  the  private  journal  of  Dr. 
Kane  and  the  notes  in  the  log-book  of  the  Advance. 

The  latitude  and  longitude,  ocean  currents,  directions,  and  force  of  winds, 
are  given  as  in  the  "  log." 

The  following  abbreviations,  adopted  by  Lieutenant  Maury  from  those  of 
Captain  Beechy,  are  used  to  denote  the  state  of  the  weather : 


.  i  R 


BTATK 

OP 

WEATHER. 

b  for  blue  sky. 

p  for  passing  showers. 

c  "   clouds. 

q  "   squally. 

d  *'  drizzling  rain. 

r  "   continuous  rain. 

/  "   thick  fog. 

s  "   snow. 

g  "   dark  stormy  weather. 

t  "   thunder. 

A  "   hail. 

a  "   ugly  threatening  weather 

I  "   lightning. 

w  "   wet  dew. 

m  "   misty  or  hazy. 

A  star  *  under  any  letter  denotes 

0  "   cloudy. 

an  extraordinary  degree. 

le  force  of  the  wind  is  marked 

as  follows : 

0  for  calm. 

7  for  moderate  gale. 

1  "   light  airs 

8  "    fresh  gale. 

2  "   light  breeze.     , 

9  "   stormy  gale. 

3  "   gentle. 

10  "   heavy  gale. 

4  "  moderate. 

11  "   storm. 

5  "   fresh. 

12  "   hurricane. 

6  "   stormy. 

The  state  of  the  weather,  and  the  direction  and  force  of  the  wind,  were  noted 
hourly ;  the  daily  mean  and  the  true  direction  have  been  given  in  the  abstract. 
Tliree  hourly  observations  (with  some  exceptions)  were  made  for  the  temper- 
ature of  air,  and  water,  and  atmospheric  pressure,  of  whicli  the  daily  mean  read- 
ings are  given  in  the  abstract.  The  readings  of  the  aneroids  are  given  uncor- 
rected, as  mere  approximations.  For  all  of  this  labor  I  am  indebted  to  the  in- 
telligence and  zeal  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Schott,  of  the  Umted  States  Coast  Survey. 

E.  K.  K. 


ill 


510 


METEOROLOaiCAL    ABSTRACT. 


H 
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Passed  Sandy  Hook. 

Moderate  breezes. 

Moderate  breezes. 

Moderate  breezes. 

Freeh  breezes. 

*  Since  the  26th.    Fresh  breeiaa. 

Moderate  breezes. 

Moderate  breezes. 

• 

i 

Z 

1 

June,  1850.                                                                                                                Atlantic  Ocean. 

8  o'clock,  50  fathoms  water,  coarse  sand ;  at  6  o'clock, 

no  bottom  with  100  fathoms. 
40  fathoms  water,  yellow  and  black  sand. 

*  Since  the  3:8t.    Sandy  bottom  in  70  fathoms;  35 
fathoms  water  in  the  evening. 

30  fathoms  water,  rocky  bottom. 

78  fathoms  water,  rorky  bottom.    Temperature  in  50 

fkthoms,  37° ;  surfare,  V^. 
Land  in  sight,  bearing  N.E.  by  N.    Icebergs  in  sight. 

Bearing  of  Cape  Rr-re,  N.E.  by  E.  A  E.   40  fathoms 

water,  rocky  bottom. 
At  100  fathoms  no  bfMtom.    Temperature  at  this 

depth,  30° ;  surfkce,  39°.     Bearing  of  Cape  Spear 

light,  N.  by  E.    Several  icebergs  in  sight. 
Land  and  icebergs  in  sight. 

*  Since  the  7th.    Many  icebergs  in  sight. 
Water  of  a  light  greenish  hue. 
Several  icebergs  in  sight. 

*  Since  the  10th.    Heavy  squall. 
Heavy  squall  from  the  E. 

1 

■ 
e 

1 

cloudy, 
cloudy. 

clear  day. 

clear, 
pleaitant. 

clear. 

rainy. 

0.  f.  r. 

0.  r.  r. 

b.c. 

b. 
b.c. 

b.c. 

b.  c. 

0.  f.  d. 

o.f. 
0.  b.  c. 
f.  r.  c. 

o.f. 

b.c. 

b.c. 

c.  r. 

jajauiojiiii 

30.333 

30.165 

39.85 

29  76 

29.93 

30.01 

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30.30 
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E.  JN. 

E.  by  N. 

E.  by  S.  A  S. 

VV.  by  S. 

N.byW.JW. 

N.W. 

N. 

E.  by  N.  A  N. 

E.  by  N. 

N.  by  E. 
W. 

N.W.  by  W. 
S.W.  by  S. 

S.W.  by  S. 

S.  by  W. 

S.S.W.  *W. 

S.  by  fe. 

N.N.W. 

N.E.  by  N. 

S.E.  by  S. 

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67  30  15 
65  13  48 
63  08  00 
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- 

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60  34  17 
59  11  17 

56  3144 
55  06  57 

53  49  40 

53  34  01 

52  27  05 
52  08  33 
5125  37 

50  46  57 
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51  18  15 
5107  07 
51  49  35 

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40  I7'45  N. 
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39  40  00 

40  17  35 
40  30  45 
4144  08 
42  03  13 

43  38  33  N. 

44  19  27 

44  57  57 

45  53  45 

46  13  25 

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47  15  05 

48  19  00 

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Off  Beechy  Island. 

Off  Beechy  Island. 

*  Drift  since  the  12th  ult. 

A  circle  round  the  moon,  and  two  paraaelena  vWble. 

Heavy  snow-drift. 
Off  Beechy  Island.    Heavy  snow-drift. 
Off  Beechy  Island. 
Off  Beechy  Island.           • 
Off  Beechy  Island. 
Beechy  Island  bearing  by  compass,  S.  by  E.    Cape 

Riley,  S.S.W.  i  W.   Drift  to  the  eastward  (true). 
Off  Beechy  Island. 
Off  Beechy  Island. 
Off  Beechy  Island. 
Barrow's  Strait.    Drifted  a  little  to  the  eastward 

(true).    Frost  smoke  to  the  eastward. 
Barrow's  Strait.    Cape  Riley  bears  S.  by  E.  i  E. 

Beechy  Island,  S.E.  i  S. 
Barrow's  Strait. 

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Lancaster  Sound. 

Lancaster  Sound.    Two  paraselene  visible 

*  Drift  since  the  15th.    A  paraselene  visible.    Com- 
pass bearings:  Cape  Crawfurd,  (supposed)  W.N. 
W.  A  W. ;  centre  of  Powell's  Inlet,  E.N.E. ;  Cape 
Bullen,  S.  by  K. 

Two  very  brilliant  paraselens,  circle  almost  entire. 
A  halo  round  tbe  moon.    The  finest  print  may  be 

read  with  facility  at  noon  by  turning  it  toward  the 

south.    An  o|iening  in  the  ice. 
Ice  squeezing  and  piling  up. 
Lancaster  Sound. 
A  halo  about  the  moon. 

Two  paraselene  visible.  Faint  aurora  at  noon,  to 
the  southward.  An  aurora  in  form  of  a  bow,  pass- 
ing through  the  zenith  in  a  N.W.  and  S.E.  direc- 
tion.   II  P.M.,  another  paraselene  visible. 

An  aurora  visible  at  5  A.M.,  at  6  A.M.  another  one. 
In  the  afternoon  an  aurora  passing  through  the 
zenith  in  a  N.  and  S.  direction,  10  P.M. 

*  Drift  since  the  18th.    Longitude  at  7  P.M..  62°  10' 
18".    Auroras  visible ;  one  passing  30°  from  the 
zenith,  in  form  of  an  arch,  to  the  westward,  1  A.M. 
and  8  A.M. 

An  aurora  passing  near  the  zenith  in  an  E.  and  W. 
direction,  4  A.M. 

Lancaster  Sound. 

Compass  bearings :  Cape  Warrender,  E.  i  N. ;  Cape 
Oshorn,  S.S.E.  ^  E.  Auroras  visible :  one  appeared 
in  the  form  of  an  arch  extending  to  the  horizon  in 
N.N.E.  and  S.W.  direction,  passing  15°  from  the 
zenith,  10  P.M. 

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29.51 
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S.S.W. 
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1  A.M.,  aurora  visible  to  the  southward  and  eastward 

(true),  beams  oflight  covering  the  whole  ofthe  east- 
em  half  of  the  heavens,  most  of  them  parallel  to 
the  plane  ofthe  meridian.    Aurora  extending  to 
within  30°  ofthe  horizon,  to  the  N.W.    7  P.M.,  an 
aurora  visible,  the  beams  radiating  from  the  zenith. 
A  noise  bounding  like  the  cracking  of  the  ice. 

Faint  aurora  seen  to  the  southward  and  eastward. 

7  A.M.,  a  faint  aurora  to  the  southward,  near  the  ho- 
rizon. The  thermometer  used  since  stood  at  Sffi 
when  the  mercury  in  the  artificial  horizon  was 
freezing. 

2  A.M.,  faint  aurora  seen  to  N.N.E.  and  S.S.W.    7 
A..M.,  aurora  to  the  S.E.  and  E.  (true).    The  ice 
formed  since  the  13th  of  January  was  27  inches 
thick. 

1  A.M..  very  fine  snow.    At  5  P.M.,  a  bright  parase- 
lene visible. 

♦  At  7  P.M.    ♦*  Drift  since  the  29lh  ult. 

Ice  formed  in  fire  hole  since  yesterday,  4^  inches 

thick. 
7  P.M.,  a  halo  about  the  moon. 

Three  icebergs  in  sight.  A  fine,  pleasant  day.  7  P.M., 
faint  aurora  visible  to  the  southward  (true). 

*  Drift  since  the  9th.    SoundingSOO  fathoms  of  line, 
no  bottom  ;  line  tended  to  the  westward.    Horizon 
much  elevated  by  reflraction  into  a  wall-like  appear- 
ance. 

1 

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V 

11 

c.o.b.  m. 
b.  c.  m. 

b.  e.  m. 

b.  m.  0. 

b.  m. 

b. 

b.  m. 

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b.  m. 
0.  m. 

0.  m. 
0.  m. 
b.  m. 

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29.26 
29.62 

29.65 
29.43 
29.55 
29.80 

29.88 

29.95 

30.01 
30.32 

30.05 
29.87 
3U.01 

30.08 

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N.N.E. 

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METEOROLOGICAL    ABSTRACT. 


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METEOROLOGICAL     ABSTRACT. 


535 


M 

O 

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^ 

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t-i 

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Pi 

pq 

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1. 

standing  in  for  Whale-fish  Islands.    Land  in  sight, 

supposed  to  be  Vesler  Island.   Disco  Island  in  sight. 

Passed  several  icebergs. 
Anchored  in  eight  fathoms  water.    Upper  part  of 

Lievely  harbor  still  tilled  with  winter  ice. 
At    anchor,   Lievely.      Chronometer   compared   at 

Graah  and  Parry's  observatory ;  loss  in  rate  in  13 

months,  23.8  seconds. 
At  anchor,  Lievely. 
At  anchor,  Lievely. 
At  anchor,  Lievely. 

Many  bergs  in  sight  at  11  P.M.,  standing  in. 
Many  bergs  in  sight,  land  about  10  miles  distant. 

Standing  along  the  land. 
Passed  many  bergs  and  drift  ice.    Amid  large  bergs, 

weather  dark   and  threatening.    Made  the  N.W. 

Poi  nt  of  Kanarsuck  Land.   Passed  through  a  group 

of  40  icebergs. 
Many  bergs  and  light  floe  ice.    OflT  Cape  Lawson. 

At  Storoe  Islands  the  ice  became  impassable ;  had 

io  turn  back.   Weather  very  thick.    Passed  a  ledge 

of  rocks  not  mentioned  on  the  chart. 
Sounded  in  95  fathoms,  muddy  bottom. 
Rocky  bottom  in  15  fathoms  water.    Saili'ig  through 

loose  ice.    Dark  Head  in  sight.    Weather  very 

thick. 
Land  in  sight.   Ice  loose  in  direction  of  HaroS  Island. 
Good  deal  of  loose  ice  about.    True  bearing  of  Dark 

Head,  S.  7°  52'  W.    Ice  loose  and  driving  about 

with  the  tides. 
No  change  in  the  ice. 

Means. 

f.  h.  c. 

b.  c. 

b.  c. 

b.  c.  f. 
o.  r.  f. 

c.  f. 
b.  c. 

b.  C.  R. 

o.  s. 

o.  r.  s. 

o.m.s.b.c. 
0.  m.  s. 

c.  m.  b.  c. 
b. 

c. 

aqij(Ui|;(iJH 
uuaw 

30.26 

30.21 
30.21 

30.12 
30.16 
30.20 
30.14 
30.14 

29.98 

29.78 

30.05 
30.24 

30.52 
30.53 

30.50 
30  20 

jo».ii)jjngjii 

+34.7 
37.0 

35.5 
33.8 

32.6 

31.7 

30.2 
31.4 

30.6 
30.0 

32.4 
+32.7 

•J  IV  aiUJo 
•duiaj,  UBiin; 

+33.0 

44.5 
41.6 

41.5 
37.1 
41.7 
36.0 
35.1 

34.7 

34.2 

32.4 
33.2 

32.5 
33.2 

38.8 
+36.7 

•P"!A\ 
ain  JO  s.i4u,4 

c»         m      at          atnnnn     <n             o             nn         eiM          «n 

II 
ll 

S.S.E. 

E. 

Variable. 

W.S.W. 
S.W.  by  S. 

W.S.W. 

N.W. 

S.W.  by  S. 

S.  by  E. 

S.  by  E. 

S.W. 
S.S.W. 

W.N.W. 
N.N.W. 

Variable. 

•ejnoH              .                                     •                  ■     •              ■    .              .  ! 

n  "!  WHi       •                         '   ■                      •  1 

;     :    !     iiii!   ;       ;       W     W     \ 

II 

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a 

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53  24  40  W. 

53  24  40 
53  24  40 
53  24  40 

.... 
35  45  27 

1 

68  46  55  N. 

69  14  22 

69  14  22 
69  14  22 
69  14  22 

69  24  09 

72  24  32 
72  22  02 

■0X1(1  !§ 

2       U    2       SgSSS    S          a          SS       SS       ^1 

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METEOROLOGICAL     ABSTRACT. 


537 


'j>)ldtr]nJHi[ 

'♦m,i<M'i"!'*H 


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O  J) 


00  »«  -*l^    w 
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ai|)  JO  t).tju,i| 


U-3 


i  5 
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«(NO«psff»e»CT  CI  •-<««(?«     ionv«M 


3      S'*  3      3  >ii»>>.>> 
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METEOROLOGICAL     ABSTRACT. 


M 
O 

< 
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Q 
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CO 

E- 

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Ice  still  closely  packed. 

Ice  opened  a  little. 

Ice  loose  and  drifting  to  the  southward.    Several 

bergs  in  sight.    At  midnight  ice  closed. 
Ice  loose  round  us.    Many  bergs.    Land  distant  10 

miles.    An  immense  glacier  in  sight.    Loose  blue 

bottom  at  440  fathoms. 
Devil's  Thumb  seen.    Young  ice  }th8  of  an  inch 

thick.    Ice  loose  and  broken. 
Ice  closing. 
No  change  in  the  ice. 
No  change  in  the  ice. 
Ice  loose  and  much  broken. 
No  change. 
No  change. 

Slight  motion  of  the  ice.    Young  ice  J  an  inch  thick. 
Some  icebergs  ahead.    Ice  more  closely  packed. 
No  change  in  the  ice. 
Ice  squeezing  and  breaking  up. 

00 

s 

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c.  b. 

b.  c.  f. 

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S.  by  E. 

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S.  by  E. 

N.E.  by  E. 

S.E.  by  S. 

E.  by  S. 
W.  by  N. 
N.N.W. 
Variable. 
N.  by  W. 
N.W.  by  N. 
N.E. 
Variable. 

S. 

S. 

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s.s 
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METEOROLOGICAL    ABSTRACT. 


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HALF-MONTHLY     ABSTRACT. 


541 


B. 

HALF-MONTHLY  ABSTRACT 

»/  the  mean  Force  of  the  Wind,  the  mean  Temperature  of  the  Air  and  Water,  and 
the  mean  Height  of  the  Barometer  at  the  Level  of  the  Sea. 


Mean 

Mnnlh 

Force  of  the 

Ter  perature  of  ;Temp.    of   Sgr- 

Height  of  Ba^ 

Latitude. 

ill  U 1 1  ti  u  • 

Wind. 

the  Air. 

face  of  the  Water. 

roincter. 

o 

1850.      , 

49.4  N. 

June. 

4 

-j-41.1 

+  40.6 

29.95 

65.8 

(( 

3 

39.2 

36.9 

29.77 

73.1 

July. 

2 

36.2 

31.7 

29.76 

74.4 

ti 

3 

35.7 

30.1 

29.88 

75.4 

August. 

2 

35.8 

32.4 

29.99 

75.3 

it 

4 

34.2 

31.6 

29.97 

74.8 

September. 

3 

27.1 

30.2 

30.18 

75.-1 

II 

3 

16.5 

.. 

29.77 

74.9 

October. 

3 

6.9 

.. 

30.13 

74.8 

II 

2 

—  2.8 

30.18 

74.7 

November. 

4 

—   6.7 

.. 

30.01 

74.6 

II 

2 

-   8.6 

30.37 

74.3 

December. 

3 

—  16.1 

30.13 

74.3 

II 
1851. 

2 

—  13.5 

-- 

29.98 

73.8 

January. 

3 

—  16.6 

29.76 

73.3 

11 

3 

—  17.3 

29.92 

72.5 

February. 

2 

—  26.9 

.. 

29.82 

72.1 

II 

2 

—32.2 

.. 

30.38 

71.7 

March. 

3 

—  22.7 

29.98 

71.0 

II 

4 

—  11.5 

.. 

30.14 

70.3 

April. 

2 

+   6.0 

.. 

30.34 

69.8 

11 

2 

9.9 

30.47 

68.7 

May. 

3 

16.0 

.. 

30.36 

67.2 

" 

3 

24.2 

.. 

30.11 

1     66.8 

June. 

3 

32.8 

32.0 

30.45 

1     70.2 

U 

3 

36.7 

32.7 

30.20 

!     73.3 

July. 

2 

38.3 

32.6 

30.22 

73.8 

(1 

3 

36.4 

31.5 

30.22 

74.7 

August.  , 

2 

34.4 

30.31 

71.8 

II 

2 

37.3 

36.7 

30.08 

64.4 

September. 

3 

40.3 

40.5 

30.09 

ii 
ill 


;J 


542 


FREQUENCY    OF    THE    WINDS. 


E. 

TABLE  OF  THE  RELATIVE  FREQUENCY  OF  THE  WINDS 

in  each  Month,  on  the  Meridian  of  Baffin's  Bay  {during  the  Months  of  September, 
October,  November,  and  December,  on  a  more  Western  Meridian),  showing  the 
Number  of  Days  on  which  each  of  the  eight  Winds  blow. 


Mean 
Latitude. 

Mean 
Longitude. 

Month. 

1 

u 

H 

& 

^ 

u 

_^_ 

SJ 

Z 

N 

oi 

03 

w 

^ 

2i 

67  N. 

0 

54  W. 

June,  1850. 

1 

3 

1 

6 

3 

4 

5 

3 

4 

74 

58 

July. 

.. 

V 

7 

1 

4 

2 

5 

1 

1 

9 

75 

70 

August. 

.. 

5 

4 

5 

5 

3 

3 

1 

I 

4 

75 

93 

September. 

.. 

2 

5 

2 

1 

2 

5 

5 

2 

6 

75 

93 

October. 

2 

.. 

14 

5 

2 

.. 

2 

3 

.. 

3 

75 

93 

November. 

1 

.. 

7 

2 

3 

10 

.. 

1 

6 

74 

85 

December. 

3 

3 

2 

2 

1 

1 

v 

5       3 

5 

73 

75 

Jan.,  1851. 

1 

.. 

3 

1 

.. 

1 

.. 

1 

1   "^ 

12 

72 

70 

February. 

.. 

3 

2 

3 

3 

3 

.. 

2 

6 

6 

7; 

66 

March. 

1 

6 

2 

1 

4 

3 

t? 

11 

70 

63 

April. 

2 

2 

4 

2 

.. 

6 

5 

4 

1 

4 

68 

62 

May. 

1 

3 

4 

4 

1 

1 

4 

2 

11 

68 

57 

June. 

2 

4 

2 

5 

2 

2 

5 

4 

4 

73 

56 

July. 

1 

6 

6 

2 

1 

4 

7 

2 

1 

1 

74 

56 

August. 

4 

5 

3 

3 

2 

5 

_3^ 

6 

i  Sept.       ^ 

For  the  fall  months   ■  ■  .<  October  > 

3 

2 

26 

9 

6 

12 

7 

8 

3 

15 

i  Nov.       S 

I  Dec.       1 

For  the  winter  months  .  <  Jan.       > 

4 

6 

7 

6 

4 

5 

1 

8 

26 

23 

(Feb.       ) 

I  March    \ 

For  the  spring  months    .  <  April      >• 

4 

5 

14 

6 

2 

8 

10 

11 

6 

26 

<May       S 

For  the  summer  months  j  tJJPJ      ) 
(mean  of  1850  and  '51)  \  ^^^jy^^^  \ 

1 

9 

16 

8 

11 

7 

12 

7 

7 

14 

'  For  the  y 

ear 

12 

22 

63 

29 

23 

32  1  3(i 

34  1  42 

7H 

From  which  it  appears  that  N.  and  N.W.  winds  blow  during  five  rnonths  of 
the  year.  During  the  other  seven  months  the  winds  are  equally  frequent  from 
each  of  the  other  quarters. 


ACCESS     TO    A    POLAR    SEA. 


543 


F. 

Lecture  on  the  Access  to  an  Open  Polar  Sea  in  connection  with  the  Search  after  Sir 
John  Franklin  and  his  Companions,  read  before  the  American  Geographical  and 
Statistical  Society  at  its  regular  monthly  meeting,  by  Dr.  Kane,  December  14, 
1852. 

The  north  pole,  the  remote  northern  extremity  of  our  earth's  axis  of  rotation, 
is  regarded,  even  by  geographers,  with  that  mysterious  awe  which  envelops  the 
inaccessible  and  unknown. 

It  is  shut  out  from  us  by  an  investing  zone  of  ice  ;  and  this  barrier  is  so  per- 
manent, that  successive  explorers  have  traced  its  outline,  like  that  of  an  ordin- 
ary sea-coast. 

The  early  settlements  of  Iceland,  and  their  extension  to  Greenland,  as  far 
back  as  900  A.D.,  indicated  a  protruding  tongue  of  ice  from  the  unknown  north, 
along  the  coast  of  Greenland.  I  must  express  a  doubt  if  the  early  voyages  of 
Cabot,  and  Frobisher,  and  the  Cortereals  did  more  than  establish  detached  points 
of  this  line.  The  voyages,  however,  of  the  Basque  and  Biscayan  fishermen, 
about  1575,  to  Cape  Breton,  made  us  aware  of  a  similar  ice-raft  along  the  coasts 
of  Labrador  to  the  north  ;  and  the  coiumereial  routes  of  the  old  Muscovy  com- 
pany, aided  by  the  Dutch  and  English  whaler.^,  extended  this  across  to  Spitz- 
bergcn,  and  thence  to  the  regions  north  of  Archangel,  in  the  Arctic  Seas.  The 
English  navigators  of  the  days  of  Elizabeth,  the  "  notable  worthys  of  the  Norths 
Weste  Passage,"  spoke  of  a  similar  ice-raft  up  Baffin's  and  Hudson's  Bays,  and 
the  Russo-Siberians  gave  us  vaguely  a  girding-line  of  ice,  which  protruded  irreg- 
ularly from  the  Asiatic  and  European  coasts  nto  the  Polar  Ocean.  Lastly, 
Cook  proved  th^t  the  same  barrier  continued  across  Behring's  Straits  as  high 
as  70°  44'  north. 

From  all  this  it  appeared  that  the  approaches  to  the  pole  were  barricaded  with 
solid  ice.  We  owe  to  the  march  of  modern  discovery,  especially  stimulated  by 
the  search  after  its  great  pioneer,  Sir  John  Franklin,  our  ability  accurately  to  de- 
fine nearly  all  the  coasts  of  a  great  polar  sea,  if  not  to  lay  down  the  no  less  in- 
teresting coast  of  a  grand  continuous  ice-border  that  encircles  it. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  this  ice,  although  influenced  by  winds,  currents, 
and  deflecting  land  masses,  retains  through  the  corresponding  period  of  each 
successive  year  a  strikingly  uniform  outline. 

During  the  winter  and  spring,  from  October  to  May,  or  eight  months  of  the 
year,  it  may  he  found  traveling  down  the  coast  of  Labrador  almost  to  Newfound- 
land, blockading  the  approaches  into  Hudson's  Bay,  and  cementing  into  one  great 
mass  the  numberless  outlets  which  extend  from  it  and  Baffin's  Bay  to  the  un- 
known coasts  of  the  north. 

Influenced  by  the  earth's  rotation,  this  ice  accumulates  toward  the  westward, 
leaving  an  uncertain  passage  along  the  eastern  waters  of  Baffin's  Bay ;  after 
which  it  resumes  its  march  along  the  eastern  coast  of  Greenland,  shutting  in 
that  extensive  region  appropriated  to  the  interesting  legend,  or  that  meteoro- 
logical myth,  as  it  has  been  designated  by  Humboldt,  of  "  Lost  Greenland."  Its 
next  course  is  to  the  northeast,  sometimes  enveloping  Iceland ;  and  thence,  ex- 


, 


544 


ACCESS    TO    A 


tending  to  the  east  by  Jan  Mryen's  Land  and  Spitzbergcn,  it  crosses  the  merid- 
ian of  Greenwich  at  some  point  between  the  latitudes  of  70"  and  73". 

I  now  call  your  attention  to  a  reinarJialih-  feature  in  this  great  ice  coast  line. 
Upon  reaching  a  longitude  of  about  70°  east,  it  suddenly  turns  toward  the  north, 
forming  a  marked  indentation  as  high  as  latitude  80°  ;  then,  coming  again  to  the 
southeast  until  it  reaches  Cherie  Island,  it  continues  on  with  a  varying  line  to 
the  «nex])lored  regions  north  of  Nova  Zendda. 

This  indentation  or  sinuosity,  best  known  as  the  old  "  Fishing  Bight"  of  the 
Greenland  Seas,  is  undoul)tedl>  due  to  tlio  thermal  inllueucts  of  the  Gulf  Stream. 
We  know  that  the  coasts  of  Nova  Zembla  feel  the  inlluences  of  its  waters  ;  and 
Petermann,  and  many  others,  guided  by  the  projected  curves  of  Dove,  suppose 
that  its  heated  current  is  deflected  by  that  peninsula,  so  as  to  impress  the  polar 
ice  to  a  greater  degree  of  northing  than  on  any  other  part  of  our  globe. 

It  would  be  important  to  the  objects  of  my  communication,  that  I  should  trace 
this  ice  throughout  its  entire  extent ;  but  I  have  not  the  means  of  doing  so  with 
exactness.  Barentz,  in  1596,  was  arrested  by  ice  in  latitude  77*^  25',  upon  the 
meridian  of  70°  east.  Pront-schitscheff met  the  same  rebuffat  the  same  height 
thirty  degrees  further  west  (100°  east).  Anjou,  Matieuschin,  and  Wrangell 
found  it  in  a  varying  belt  along  the  Asiatic  coast,  at  furthest  but  filly  miles  in 
width. 

The  enterprise  of  our  American  whalers  has  also  traced  this  ice  across  Beh- 
ring's  Straits,  as  high  as  latitude  72°  40' ;  and  it  is  probable  that  Herald  Island, 
in  latitude  71°  17',  is  a  part  of  a  great  island  chain,  continued  from  Cape  Yacan 
to  Banks'  Land  and  the  Parry  Islands ;  an  archipelago  whose  northern  faces 
are  yet  unexplored,  but  which  undoubtedly  serves  as  a  cluster  of  points  of  ice- 
cementation,  and  abounds  more  or  less  with  polar  ice  at  all  seasons  of  the  year. 

We  have  now  followed,  throughout  its  entire  circuit,  this  immense  investing 
body.  The  circunipolar  ice,  as  I  will  venture  to  name  it,  may  be  said  to  bound 
an  imperfect  circle  of  6000  miles  in  circumference  with  a  rude  diameter  of 
2000  miles,  and  an  area,  if  we  admit  its  continuity  to  the  pole,  one  third  larger 
than  the  continent  of  Europe. 

But  theory  has  determined  that  this  great  surface  is  not  continuous.  It  is  an 
annulus,  a  ring  surrounding  an  area  of  open  water — the  Polynya,  or  Iceless  Sea. 

Polynya  is  a  Russian  word,  signifying  an  open  space ;  and  it  is  used  by  the 
Siberians  to  indicate  the  occasional  vacancies  which  occur  in  a  frozen  water 
surface.  Although  such  a  vacancy  as  applied  to  a  polar  sea  is  generally  recog- 
nized to  exist,  it  is  right  for  me  to  state  that  this  opinion  is  not  based  upon  the 
results  of  exploration.  It  it  due  rather  to  the  well-elaborated  inductions  of  Sa- 
bine and  Berghaus,  and  especially  of  our  accomplished  American  hydrographer, 
Lieutenant  Maury.  The  observations  of  Wrangell  and  Penny,  and  still  more 
lately  of  Captain  Inglefield,  although  strongly  confirmatory,  were  limited  to  a 
range  of  vision  in  no  instance  exceeding  fifty  miles,  and  were  subject  to  all  the 
deceptions  of  distance.  As,  however,  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  existence 
of  such  a  sea  are  of  the  highest  interest  to  future  geographical  research,  and,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  have  never  yet  been  grouped  together,  I  shall  take  the  lib 
erty  of  presenting  them  to  the  society. 

The  North  Polar  Ocean  is  a  great  mediterranean,  draining  the  northern  slopes 
of  three  continents,  and  receiving  the  waters  of  an  area  of  3,751,270  square 
miles.    Indeed,  the  river  systems  of  the  Arctic  Sea  exceed  those  of  the  Atlantic. 


POLAR    SEA. 


540 


Tho  influences  of  congelation  too,  aided  by  the  diminished  intensity  and  the 
withdrawal  of  the  solar  ray,  increase  the  atmospheric  precipitation,  and  proba- 
bly diminish  the  compensating  evaporation.  Yet  tliis  position  calls  for  further 
investigation  to  establish  it  absolutely  ;  for  recent  experiments  show  that  even 
ill  the  dark  hours  of  winter,  and  at  temperatures  of  fifty  degrees  below  zero, 
evaporation  goes  on  at  a  rapid  rate.  That  it  holds,  however,  in  general  terms, 
is  evident  from  tho  inferior  specific  gravity  of  the  Arctic  waters.  They  are  less 
salt  than  those  of  more  equatorial  regions.  Their  average  specific  gravity 
(1.0265)  indicates  about  3.60  per  cent,  of  saline  matter. 

The  atmospheric  precipitation  extending  to  the  adjacent  land  slopes,  the  melt- 
ing of  the  snows  and  accumulated  glacial  material,  and  the  floods  of  the  great 
Siberian  rivers,  are  sufficient  to  account  for  this. 

With  such  sources  of  supply,  it  is  evident  that  this  surcharged  basin  must 
have  an  outlet,  and  its  contents  a  movement  independent  of  the  laws  of  cur- 
rents generally  operative,  which  would  deteri.iine  them  toward  the  equator. 

The  avenues  of  entrance  to  and  egress  from  the  polar  basin  are  but  three ; 
Behring's  Straits,  the  estuaries  of  Hudson's  and  Baffin's  Bays,  and  the  interval 
between  Greenland  and  Norway,  upon  tlic  Atlantic  Ocean,  known  as  the  Green- 
land Sea.  In  Behring's  Straits,  it  is  nrobnble,  from  imperfect  observations,  that 
the  surface  current  sets  during  a  large  portion  of  the  year  from  the  Pacific  into 
the  Arctic  Sea,  with  a  velocity  varying  from  one  to  two  and  a  half  knots  an 
hour.  Neither  the  soundings  nor  the  diameter  of  this  strait  indicate  any  very 
large  deep-sea  discharge  in  the  other  direction. 

The  Gulf  Stream,  afler  dividing  the  Labrador  current,  has  been  traced  by  Pro- 
fessor Dove  to  the  upper  regions  of  Nova  Zcmbla ;  so  that  Baffin's  Bay,  and 
the  Hudson,  and  Greenland  Seas,  constitute  the  only  unifonn  outlet  to  the  polar 
basin.  '   -    ■■ 

It  is  by  these  avenues,  then,  that  the  enormous  masses  of  floating  ice,  with 
the  deeply-immersed  bergs,  and  the  still  deeper  belt  of  colder  water,  are  convey- 
ed outward.  Underlying  the  Gulf  Stream,  whose  waters  it  is  estimated  at  least 
to  equal  in  volume,  the  vast  submerged  icy  river  flows  southward  to  the  regions 
of  the  Caribbean.  The  recent  labors  of  the  United  States  Coast  Survey  and 
Nautical  Observatory  have,  as  the  society  is  aware,  developed  and  confirmed 
the  previously-broached  idea  of  a  compensating  system  of  polar  and  tropical 
currents ;  and  we  are  prepared  to  consider  these  colder  streams  as  equalizers 
to  the  heated  areas  of  the  tropical  latitudes,  and  analogous  in  cause  and  effect 
to  the  rectognized  course  of  the  atmospheric  currents. 

In  fact,  Dove,  Berghaus,  and  Petermann,  three  authorities  entitled  to  the  high- 
est respect,  rrcognize  for  the  Arctic  Ocean  a  system  of  revolving  currents, 
whose  direri  urn  during  summer  is  from  north  to  south,  and  during  winter  the 
reverse,  or  frfnii  tiie  south  to  the  north.  The  isotherms  of  Lieutenant  Maury 
(projected  by  Piufessor  Flye)  point  clearly  to  the  same  interesting  result.  Con- 
trasting these  groat  movements  of  discharge  and  supply  with  the  surface  ac- 
tions, we  find  during  tlic  summer  months  a  movement  along  the  northern  coasts 
of  Russia,  clearly  from  east  to  west,  from  Nova  Zembla  westwardly  and  south- 
westwardly  to  Spitzbergen,  where,  after  an  obscure  bifurcation,  it  is  met  by  a 
great  drift;  from  the  north,  and  carried  along  the  coast  of  Greenland,  in  a  large 
body  known  as  the  East  Greenland  current.  The  observations  collected  by 
Lieutenant  Commanding  De  Haven  show  that  this  stream  is  deflected  around 

Mm 


U.\ 


646 


ACCESS     TO     A 


Cape  Farewell,  passing  up  the  Greenland  coast  to  latitude  74°  76' ;  where,  after 
coming  to  the  western  side  of  the  hay,  it  passes  along  the  eastern  coast  of 
America,  even  to  the  Capes  of  Florida.  During  the  winter,  when  the  great 
rivers  of  Siberia  and  America  lose  their  volume  by  the  action  of  the  frost,  a  cur- 
rent has  been  noted  from  the  Faroe  Islands,  north  and  east,  along  the  Asiatic 
coast,  toward  Behring's  Straits.  And  then  it  is  that  the  great  surface  ice,  form- 
ed upon  the  coasts  of  Asia,  gives  place  to  a  warmer  stream,  and  the  heated 
waters  of  the  Gulf  current  bathe  and  temper  the  line  of  the  Siberian  coast. 

All  these  facts  go  to  prove  that  the  polar  basin  is  not  only  the  seat  of  an  act- 
ive supply  and  discharge,  but  of  an  intestine  circulation  independent  of  either ; 
while  the  intercommunication  of  the  whales  (B.  mysticetus),  between  the  Atlan- 
tic and  Pacific,  as  shown  by  Maury,  proves  directly  that  the  two  oceans  are 
Uiiited. 

Admitting  the  important  fact  of  a  moving,  open  sea,  the  recognized  equaliza- 
tion of  temperatures  attending  upon  large  water  masses  follows  of  course. 
But  is  the  Arctic  Sea,  in  fact,  an  unvaried  expanse  of  water  1  For  if  it  be  not, 
the  excessive  radiation  and  other  disturbing  influences  m  land  upon  general 
temperature  are  well  known.  It  is,  I  think,  an  open  sea.  And  an  argument 
may  be  deduced  for  this  belief  from  the  icebergs.  The  iceberg  is  an  ofTcast 
from  the  polar  glacier,  and  needs  land  as  an  essential  element  in  its  production 
— as  much  so  as  a  ship  the  dock-yard  on  which  she  is  built,  and  from  which  she 
is  launched.  From  the  excessive  submergence  of  these  great  detached  masses, 
they  may  be  taken  as  reliable  indices  of  the  deep-sea  currents,  while  their  sizt 
is  such  that  they  often  reach  the  latitudes  of  the  temperate  zone  before  theii 
dissolution.  Now  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  these  huge  ice  hulks  are  con- 
fined to  the  Greenland,  Spitzbergen,  and  Bafiin  Seas.  Throughout  tlie  entire 
circuit  of  the  Polar  Ocean,  almost  seven  thousand  miles  of  circumscribing  coast 
we  have  but  forty  degrees  which  is  ever  seen  to  abound  in  them. 

A  second  argument,  bearing  upon  this,  is  found  in  the  fact  that  a  large  area 
■of  open  water  exists,  between  the  months  of  June  and  October,  in  the  upper 
parts  of  Baffin's  Bay.  This  mediterranean  Polynya  is  called  by  the  whalers 
the  North  Water.  After  working  through  the  clogging  ice  of  the  intermediate 
drift,  you  pass  suddenly  into  an  open  sea,  washing  the  most  northern  known 
shores  of  our  continent,  and  covering  an  area  of  90,000  square  miles. 

The  iceless  interval  is  evidently  caused  by  the  drift  having  traveled  to  the 
south  without  being  re-enforced  by  fresh  supplies  of  ice ;  and  the  latest  explora- 
tions from  the  upper  waters  of  this  bay  speak  of  avenues  thirty-six  miles  wide 
extending  to  the  north  and  east,  and  free. 

The  temperature  of  this  water  is  sometimes  12°  above  the  freezing  point ; 
and  the  open  bays  or  sinuosities,  which  often  indent  the  Spitzbergen  ice  as  high 
as  81°  north  latitude,  have  been  observed  to  give  a  sea-water  temperature  as 
high  as  38°  and  40°,  while  the  atmosphere  indicates  but  16°  above  zero. 

But,  besides  these,  we  have  arguments  growing  out  of  the  received  theories 
of  the  distribution  of  temperature  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth. 

The  actual  distribution  of  heat  in  this  shut-out  region  can  only  be  inferred. 

The  system  of  isothermals,  projected  by  Humboldt  upon  positive  data,  ceased 
u',  32°  ;  and  the  views  of  Sir  John  Leslie  (based  upon  Mayer's  theorem),  that 
the  north  pole  was  the  coldest  point  in  the  Arctic  regions,  have,  as  the  members 
are  aware,  since  been  disproved. 


POLAR    SEA. 


547 


Sir  David  Brewster,  by  a  combination  of  the  observations  of  Scoresby, 
Gieseke,  and  Parry,  determined  the  existence  of  two  poles  of  cold,  one  for 
either  hemisphere,  and  both  holding  a  fixed  relation  to  the  magnetic  poles. 
These  two  seats  of  maximum  cold  are  situated  respectively  in  Asia  and  Amer- 
ica, in  longitudes  100°  west  and  95°  east,  and  on  the  parallel  of  80°.  They  differ 
about  five  degrees  in  their  mean  annual  temperature ;  the  American,  which  is 
the  lower,  giving  three  degrees  and  a  half  below  zero.  The  isothermals  sur- 
round these  two  points,  in  a  system  of  returning  curves  yet  to  be  confirmed  by 
observation ;  but  the  inference  which  I  present  to  you,  without  comment  or 
opinion,  is,  that  to  the  north  of  80°,  and  at  any  points  intermediate  between 
these  American  and  Siberian  centres  of  intensity,  the  climate  must  be  milder, 
or,  more  properly  speaking,  the  mean  annual  temperature  must  be  more  elevated. 

Petermann,  taking  as  a  basis  the  data  of  Professor  Dove,  deduces  a  movable 
pole  of  cold,  which  in  January  is  found  in  a  line  from  Melville  Island  to  the  River 
Lena,  and,  gradually  advancing  with  the  season  into  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  recedes 
with  the  fall  and  winter  to  its  former  position.  Such  a  movement  is  clearly 
referable  to  the  summer  land  currents  with  their  freight  of  polar  ice. 

With  the  consolidation  of  winter,  the  ice  recedes,  and  the  Gulf  Stream  enters 
more  perceptibly  into  the  far  north.  The  mean  temperature  of  the  northeast 
coast  of  Siberia  is  forty  or  fifty  degrees  colder  than  that  of  the  western  shores 
of  Nova  Zombla,  while  in  July  it  is  twenty  decrees  higher. 

But  if  any  point  between  75°  and  80°  north  latitude,  a  range  sufllciently  wide 
to  include  all  the  theories,  be  regarded  as  the  seat  of  the  greatest  intensity  of 
cold,  we  may,  perhaps,  infer  the  state  of  the  Polar  Sea  from  the  known  temper- 
atures of  other  regions,  equally  distant  with  it  from  this  supposed  centre ; 
though,  as  the  lines  of  latitude  do  not  correspond  with  those  of  temperature, 
this  must  be  done  with  caution. 

I  have  been  interested  for  some  time  in  examining  this  class  of  deflections ; 
and  I  find  that  they  point  to  some  interesting  conclusions  as  to  the  fluidity  of 
the  region  about  the  pole,  and  its  attendant  mildness  of  weather. 

Thus,  for  instance,  at  Cherie  Island,  surrounded  by  moving  waters,  hr.t  in  a 
higher  latitude  than  Melville  Island,  the  seat  of  the  greatest  observed  mean  an- 
nual cold,  the  temperature  was  foimd  so  mild  throughout  the  entire  Arctic  win- 
ter, that  rain  fell  there  upon  Christmas-day. 

Barentz,  a  most  honest  and  reliable  authority,  speaks  of  the  increasing  warmth 
as  he  left  the  land  to  the  north  of  77°.  The  whalers  north  of  Spitzbergen  con- 
firm the  saying  of  the  early  Dutch,  that  the  "  Fisherman's  Bight"  is  as  pleasant 
as  the  sea  of  Amsterdam. 

Egedesminde  and  Kittenback,  two  little  Danish  and  Esquimaux  settlements 
on  the  west  coast  of  Greenland,  in  latitude  70°,  with  a  climate  influenced  by 
adjacent  land  masses,  but  nevertheless  not  completely  ice-bound,  are  in  the 
isothermal  curve  (summer  curve)  of  50°,  giving  us  a  vegetation  of  coarse  grass- 
es, and  a  few  crucifers. 

In  West  Lapland,  as  high  as  70°,  barley  has  been,  and  I  believe  is  still  grown  ; 
though  here  is  its  highest  northern  limit.  If  80°  be  our  centre  of  maximum 
cold,  the  pole,  at  90°,  is  at  the  same  distance  from  it  as  this  West  Lapland 
limit  of  the  growth  of  barley ! 

But  there  are  other  arguments  based  upon  known  facts,  and  facts  popularly 
recognized,  bearing  upon  the  theory  of  an  open  sea : 


i 


548 


ACCESS    TO    A 


The  migrations  or  animal  life.  At  the  utmost  limits  of  northern  travel  at- 
tained by  man,  hordes  of  animals  of  various  kinds  have  been  observed  to  be 
traveling  still  further. 

The  Arctic  zone,  though  not  rich  in  species,  is  teeming  with  individual  life, 
and  is  the  home  of  some  of  the  most  numerous  families  known  to  the  naturalist. 
Among  birds,  the  swimmers,  drawing  their  subsistence  from  open  water,  are 
predominant ;  the  great  families  of  ducks,  Auks,  and  procellarine  birds  {Anatina, 
AlcincB,  and  Proccllarina),  throng  the  seas  and  passages  '  ■  the  far  north,  and 
even  incubate  in  regions  of  unknown  northernness.  The  eider  duck  has  been 
traced  to  breeding  grounds  as  high  as  78°  in  Baffin's  Bay,  and  in  conjunction 
with  the  brent  goose,  seen  by  us  in  Wellington  Channel,  and  the  loon  and  little 
auk,  pass  in  great  flights  to  the  northern  waters  beyond.  The  mammals  of  the 
sea — the  huge  cetacea,  in  the  three  great  families,  Belinida;,  Delphinidte,  and 
Pkocidce,  represented  by  the  whales,  the  narwhal  and  the  seal,  as  well  as  that 
strange  marine  pachyderm,  the  tusky  walrus,  all  pass  in  schools  toward  the 
northern  waters.  I  have  seen  the  white  whale  {Dclphinoptcrus  beluga)  passing 
up  Wellington  Channel  to  the  north  for  nearly  four  successive  days,  and  that 
too  while  all  around  us  was  a  sea  of  broken  ice. 

So  with  the  quadrupeds  of  this  region.  The  equatorial  range  of  the  polar 
bear  ( U.  marilimus)  is  misconceived  by  our  geographical  zoologists.  It  is  fur- 
ther to  the  north  than  we  have  yet  reached ;  and  this  powerful  beast  informs 
us  of  the  character  of  the  accompanying  life,  upon  which  he  preys. 

The  ruminating  animals,  whose  food  must  be  a  vegetation,  obey  the  same  im- 
pulse or  instinct  of  far  northern  travel.  The  reindeer  (Cervus  larandus),  al- 
though proved  by  my  friend,  Lieutenant  M'Clintock,  to  winter  sometimes  in  the 
Parry  group,  outside  of  the  zone  of  woods,  comes  down  from  the  north  in  herds 
as  startling  as  those  described  by  the  Siberian  travelers,  a  "  moving  forest  of 
antlers." 

The  whalers  of  North  Baffin's  Bay,  as  high  as  75°,  shoot  them  in  numbers, 
and  the  Esquimaux  of  Whale  Sound,  77°,  are  clothed  with  their  furs.  Five 
thousand  skins  are  sent  to  Denmark  from  Egedesminde  and  Holsteinberg  alone. 

Before  passing  from  this  branch  of  my  subject,  I  must  mention,  also,  that  the 
POLAR  DRiFT-icB  comes  first  from  the  north.  The  breaking  up,  the  thaw  of  the 
ice-plain,  does  not  commence  in  our  so-called  warmer  south,  but  in  regions  to 
the  north  of  those  yet  attained.  Wrangell  speaks  of  this  on  the  Asiatic  Seas, 
Parry  above  Spitzbergen ;  and  my  friend,  Captain  Penny,  shrewd,  bold,  and  ad- 
venturous, confirms  it  in  his  experience  of  Wellington  Sound. 

In  addition  to  all  this,  we  have  the  observations  of  actual  travel  ;  although 
this,  confirmatory  as  it  is,  must,  like  the  theoretical  views,  be  received  with  cau- 
tion. Barentz  saw  an  opening  water  beyond  the  northernmost  point  of  Europe  ; 
Anjou  the  same  beyond  the  Siberian  Bear  Islands ;  and  Wrangell,  in  a  sledge 
journey  from  the  mouth  of  the  Kolyma,  speaks  of  a  "  vast  illimitable  ocean," 
illimitable  to  mortal  vision. 

To  penetrate  this  icy  annulus,  to  make  the  "  northwest  passage"  tlie  north- 
east passage  to  reach  the  pole,  have  been  favored  dreams  since  the  early  days 
of  ocean  navigation.  Yet  up  to  this  moment  complete  failure  has  attended 
every  attempt.  One  voyager,  William  Scoresby,  known  to  the  scientific  world  ■ 
for  the  range  and  exactness  of  his  observation,  passed  beyond  the  latitude  of 
81°  30',    But  after  discarding  the  apocryphal  voyages  of  the  early  Dutch,  whose 


POLAR    SEA. 


549 


imperfect  nautical  observation  rendered  entirely  unreliable  their  assertions  of 
latitudes,  we  have  the  names  of  but  .  » o  who  may  be  said  to  have  attained 
the  parallel  of  82° ;  Heindrich  Hudson  in  1607,  and  Edward  Parry  in  our  own 
times. 

This  latter  navigator  felt  that  the  sea,  ice-clogged  with  its  floating  masses, 
was  not  the  element  for  successful  travel,  and  with  a  daring  unequaled,  I  think, 
in  the  history  of  personal  enterprise,  determined  to  cross  the  ice  upon  sledges. 
The  spot  he  selected  was  north  of  Spitzbergen,  a  group  of  rocks  called  the 
Seven  Islands,  the  most  northern  known  land  upon  our  globe.  With  indomita- 
ble resolution  he  gained  within  four  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  of  his  mys- 
terious goal,  and  then,  unable  to  stem  the  rapid  drift  to  the  southward,  was 
forced  to  return. 

But  the  question  of  access  to  the  Arctic  pole — the  penetration  to  this  open 
sea — is  now  brouglit  again  before  us,  not  as  in  the  days  of  Hudson,  and  Scores- 
by,  and  Parry,  a  curious  problem  for  scientific  inquiry,  but  as  an  object  claiming 
philanthropic  effort,  and  appealing  thus  to  tlie  sympathies  of  the  whole  civilized 
world — the  rescue  of  Sir  John  Franklin  and  his  followers. 

The  recent  discoveries  by  the  united  squadrons  of  De  Haven  and  Penny,  of 
Franklin's  first  winter  quarters  at  the  mouth  of  Wellington  Channel,  aided  by 
the  complete  proofs  since  obtained  that  he  did  not  proceed  to  the  east  or  west, 
render  it  beyond  conjecture  certain  that  he  passed  up  Wellington  Channel  to 
the  north. 

Here  we  have  lost  him ;  and,  save  the  lonely  records  upon  the  tomb-stones 
of  his  dead,  for  seven  years  he  has  been  lost  to  the  world.  To  assign  his  exact 
position  is  impossible  :  we  only  know  that  he  has  traveled  up  this  land-locked 
channel,  seeking  the  objects  of  his  enterprise  to  the  north  and  west.  That 
some  of  his  party  are  yet  in  existence,  this  is  not  the  place  to  argue.  Let  the 
question  rest  upon  the  opinions  of  those  who,  having  visited  this  region,  are  at 
least  better  qualified  to  judge  of  its  resources  than  those  wlio  have  formed  their 
opinions  by  the  fireside. 

The  journeys  of  Penny,  Goodsir,  Manson,  and  Sutherland  have  shown  this 
tract  to  be  a  tortuous  estuary,  a  highway  for  the  polar  ice-drift,  and  interspersed 
with  islands  as  high  as  latitude  77°  ;  beyond  which  they  could  not  see.  It  is 
up  this  channel  that  the  searching  squadron  of  Sir  Edward  Belcher  has  now 
disappeared,  followed  by  the  anxious  wishes  of  those  who  look  to  it  as  the  final 
hope  of  rescue.  I  regret  to  say,  that  after  considering  carefully  the  prospects 
of  this  squadron,  I  have  to  confess  that  I  am  far  from  sanguine  as  to  its  suc- 
cess. It  must  be  remembered  that  Wellington  Channel  is  all  that  has  just  been 
stated,  tortuous,  studded  with  islands,  and  a  thoroughfare  for  the  northern  ice ; 
and  the  open  water  sighted  by  Captain  Penny  is  not  to  be  relied  on,  either  as 
extending  very  far,  or  as  more  than  temporarily  unobstructed.  If  we  look  up 
from  the  highlands  of  Beechy  Head,  fifty  miles  of  apparently  open  navigation 
is  all  that  we  can  assert  certainly  to  have  been  attained  by  the  searching  ves- 
sels, and  to  reach  the  present  known  limits  of  the  sound  would  require  a  prog- 
ress in  a  direct  line  on  their  part  of  at  least  one  hundred  and  thirty  miles. 

They  left,  moreover,  on  the  fifth  of  August ;  and  early  as  tliis  is  there  con- 
sidered, and  open  as  was  the  season,  they  have  but  forty  days  before  wir.ar 
cements  the  sea,  or  renders  navigation  impossible  by  clogging  the  running  gear. 
By  a  fortunate  concurrence  of  circumstances,  the  squadron  of  Sir  Edward 


550 


ACCESS     TO    A 


Belcher  may  do  every  thing ;  but  I  must  repeat  that  I  am  far  from  sanguine  as 
to  their  success.    The  chances  are  against  their  reaching  the  open  sea. 

It  is  to  announce,  then,  another  plan  of  search  that  I  am  now  before  you ; 
and  as  the  access  to  the  open  sea  forms  its  characteristic  feature,  I  have  given 
you  the  preceding  outline  of  the  physical  characteristics  of  the  region,  in  order 
to  enable  you  to  weigh  properly  its  merits  and  demerits. 

It  is  in  recognition  of  the  important  office  which  American  geographers  may 
perform  toward  promoting  its  utility  and  success,  that  I  have  made  the  society 
the  first  recipient  of  the  details  and  outlines  of  my  plan. 

Henry  Grinnell,  the  first  president  and  now  a  vice-president  of  this  society, 
has  done  me  the  honor  of  placing  his  vessel,  tlie  Advance,  at  my  disposition ; 
and  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  has  assigned  me  to  "  special  duty"  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  expedition. 

My  plan  of  search  is  based  upon  the  probable  extension  of  the  land  masses 
of  Greenland  to  the  far  north — a  view  yet  to  be  verified  by  travel,  but  sustained 
by  the  analogies  of  physical  geography.  Greenland,  though  looked  upon  by 
Gieseke  as  a  congeries  of  islands  cemented  by  interior  glaciers,  is,  in  fact,  a 
peninsula,  and  follows  in  its  formation  the  general  laws  which  have  been  rec- 
ognized since  the  days  of  Forster  as  belonging  to  peninsulas  with  a  southern 
trend.  Its  abrupt,  truncated  termination  at  Staaten-Hook  is  as  marked  -^s  that 
which  is  found  at  the  Capes  Good  Hope  and  Horn  of  the  two  great  conti- 
nents, the  Comorin  of  Peninsular  India,  Cape  South  East  of  Australia,  or  the 
Gibraltar  of  Southern  Spain. 

Analogies  of  general  contour,  which  also  liken  it  to  southern  peninsulas,  are 
even  more  striking.  The  island  groups,  for  instance,  seen  to  the  east  of  these 
southern  points,  answering  to  the  Falkland  Islands,  Madagascar,  Ceylon,  New 
Zealand,  the  Bahamas  of  Florida,  and  the  Balearics  of  the  coast  of  Spain,  are 
represented  by  Iceland  off  the  coast  of  Greenland.  It  has  been  observed  that 
all  great  peninsulas,  too,  have  an  excavation  or  bend  inward  on  their  western 
side,  a  "  concave  inflection"  toward  the  interior.  Thus,  South  America  be- 
tween Lima  and  Valdavia,  Africa  in  the  Gulf  of  Guinea,  India  in  Cambaye,  and 
Australia  in  the  Bay  of  Nuyts,  are  followed  by  Greenland  in  the  great  excava- 
tion of  Disco.  Analogies  of  the  same  sort  may  offer  when  we  consider  those 
more  important  features  of  relief  so  popularly  yet  so  profoundly  treated  by  Pro- 
fessor Guyot. 

Greenland  is  lined  by  a  couple  of  lateral  ranges,  metamorphic  in  structure, 
and  expanding  in  a  double  axis  to  the  N.N.W.  and  N.N.E.  They  present  strik- 
ing resemblances  to  the  Ghauts  of  India,  being  broken  by  the  same  great  injec- 
tions of  green-stone,  and  walling  in  a  plateau  region  where  glacial  accumula- 
tions correspond  to  those  of  the  Hindostan  plains. 

The  culmination  of  these  peaks  in  series  indicates  strongly  their  extension 
to  a  region  far  to  the  north.  Thus  from  the  South  Cape  of  Greenland  to  Disco 
Bay,  in  lat.  70°,  the  peaks  vary  in  height  from  800  to  3200  feet.  Tliose  of 
Proven,  lat.  71°,  are  2300,  and  those  observed  by  me  in  lat.  76"  10',  gave  sex- 
tant altitudes  of  1380  feet,  with  interior  summits  at  least  one  third  higher. 

The  same  continued  elevation  is  observed  by  the  whalers  as  high  as  77°,  and 
Scoresby  noted  nearly  corresponding  elevations  on  the  eastern  coasts,  in  lat. 
73°.  The  coast  seen  by  Inglefield,  to  the  north  of  78°,  was  high  and  com- 
manding. 


POLAR    SEA. 


551 


From  these  alternating  altitudes,  continued  throughout  a  meridian  line  of 
nearly  eleven  hundred  geographical  miles,  I  infer  that  this  chain  follows  the 
nearly  universal  law  of  a  gradual  subsidence,  and  that  Greenland  is  continued 
further  to  the  north  tlian  any  other  known  land.  In  the  old  continents  the  land 
slopes  toward  the  Arctic  Sea  ;  but  although  in  the  New  World  the  descent  of 
the  land  generally  is  to  the  east,  the  law  of  the  gradual  decline  of  meridional 
chains  is  universal. 

Believing,  then,  in  such  an  extension  of  Greeidand,  and  feeling  that  the  search 
for  Sir  John  Franklin  is  best  promoted  by  a  course  which  will  lead  directly  to 
the  open  sea — feeling,  too,  that  tlie  approximation  of  the  meridians  would  make 
access  to  the  west  as  easy  from  Northern  Greenland  as  from  Wellington  Chan- 
nel, and  access  to  the  east  far  more  easy — feeling,  too,  that  the  highest  protrud- 
ing headland  will  be  most  likely  to  afford  some  trace  of  the  lost  party,  I  am 
led  to  propose  and  attempt  this  line  of  search. 

Admitting  such  an  extension  of  the  land  masses  of  Greenland  to  the  north, 
we  have  the  following  inducements  for  exploration  and  research  : 

1.  Terra  firma  as  the  bnsis  of  our  operations,  obviating  the  capricious  char- 
acter of  ice  travel. 

2.  A  due  northern  line,  which,  throwing  aside  the  iiifluences  of  terrestrial 
radiation,  would  lead  soonest  to  the  open  sea,  should  such  exist. 

3.  The  benefit  of  the  fan-like  abutment  of  land,  on  the  north  face  of  Green- 
land, to  check  the  ice  in  the  course  of  its  southern  or  equatorial  drift,  thus  ob- 
viating the  great  drawback  of  Parry  in  his  attempts  to  reach  the  pole  by  the 
Spitzbergen  Sea. 

4.  Animal  life  to  sustain  traveling  parties. 

5.  The  co-operation  of  the  Esquimaux,  &c.  ;  settlements  of  these  people 
having  been  found  as  high  as  Whale  Sound,  and  probably  extending  still  further 
along  the  coast. 

The  point  I  would  endeavor  to  attain  would  be  the  highest  attainable  seats 
of  Baffin's  Bay,  from  the  sound  known  as  Smith's  Sound,  and  advocated  by 
Baron  Wrangell  as  the  most  eligible  site  for  reaching  the  north  pole. 

As  a  point  of  departure  it  is  two  hundred  and  twenty  miles  to  the  north  of 
Beechy  Island,  the  startiifg-point  of  Sir  Edward  Belcher,  and  seventy  miles 
north  of  the  utmost  limits  seen  or  recorded  in  Wellington  Channel. 

The  party  should  consist  of  some  thirty  men,  with  a  couple  of  launches, 
sledges,  dogs,  and  gutta  percha  boats.  Tiie  provisions  to  be  pemmican,  a  prep- 
aration of  dried  meat,  packed  in  cases  impregnable  to  the  assaults  of  the  Polar 
bear. 

We  shall  leave  the  United  States  in  time  to  reach  the  bay  at  the  earliest 
season  of  navigation.  The  brig  furnished  by  Mr.  Grinnell  for  this  purpose  is 
admirably  strengthened  and  fully  equipped  to  meet  the  peculiar  trials  of  the 
service.  After  reaching  the  settlement  of  Uppernavik,  we  take  in  a  supply  of 
Ejquimaux  dogs,  and  a  few  picked  men  to  take  charge  of  the  sledges. 

We  then  enter  the  ice  of  Melville  Bay,  and,  if  successful  in  penetrating  it, 
hasten  to  Smith's  Sound,  forcing  our  vessel  to  the  utmost  navigable  point,  and 
tbf-re  securing  her  for  the  winter.  The  operations  of  search,  however,  are  not 
to  be  suspended.  Active  exercise  is  the  best  safeguard  against  the  scurvy ; 
and  although  the  darkness  of  winter  will  not  be  in  our  favor,  I  am  convinced 
that,  with  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the  solstitial  period  of  maximum  obscurity, 


552 


ACCESS    TO    A    POLAR   SEA. 


we  can  push  forward  our  provision  depots  by  sledge  and  launch,  and  thus  pre- 
pare for  the  final  efforts  of  our  search. 

In  this  I  am  strengthened  by  the  valuable  opinion  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Murdaugh, 
late  the  sailing-master  of  the  Advance.  He  has  advocated  this  very  sound  as 
a  basis  of  land  operations.  And  the  recent  journey  of  Mr.  William  Kennedy, 
commanding  Lady  Franklin's  last  expedition,  shows  that  the  fall  and  winter 
should  no  longer  be  regarded  as  lost  months. 

The  sledges,  which  constitute  so  important  a  feature  of  our  expedition,  and' 
upon  which  not  only  our  success  but  our  safety  will  depend,  are  to  be  con- 
structed with  extreme  care.  Each  sledge  will  carry  the  blanket,  bags,  and  furs 
of  six  men,  together  with  a  measured  allowance  of  pemmican ;  a  light  tent  of 
India-rubber  cloth,  of  a  new  pattern,  will  be  added ;  but  for  our  nightly  halt  the 
main  dependence  will  be  the  snow-house  of  the  Esquimaux.  It  is  almost  in- 
credible, in  the  face  of  what  obstacles,  to  what  extent,  a  well-organized  sledge 
party  can  advance.  The  relative  importance  of  every  ounce  of  weight  can  be 
calculated,  and  the  system  of  advanced  depots  of  provisions  organized  admi- 
rably. 

Alcohol  or  tallow  is  the  only  fuel ;  and  the  entire  cooking  apparatus,  which 
is  more  for  thawing  the  snow  for  tea-water  than  for  heating  food,  can  be  car- 
ried in  a  little  bag.  Lieutenant  M'Clintock,  of  Commander  Austin's  expedi- 
tion, traveled  tlius  eight  hundred  miles — the  collective  journeys  of  the  expedi- 
tion equaled  several  thousand ;  and  Baron  Wrangell  made  by  dogs  1533  miles 
in  seventy-four  days,  and  this  over  a  fast-frozen  ocean. 

But  the  greatest  sledge  journey  upon  record  is  that  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Ken- 
nedy, who  accomplished  nearly  1400  miles,  most  of  it  in  mid- winter,  without  re- 
turning upon  his  track  to  avail  himself  of  deposited  provisions.  His  only  food 
— and  we  may  here  learn  the  practical  lesson  of  the  traveler,  to  avoid  unneces- 
sary baggage — was  pemmican,  and  his  only  sheltei*  tlie  snoio-house. 

It  is  my  intention  to  cover  each  sledge  with  a  gutta  percha  boat,  a  contriv- 
ance which  the  experience  of  the  Enr''sh  has  shown  to  be  perfectly  portable. 
Thus  equipped,  we  follow  the  trend  of  the  coast,  seeking  the  open  sea. 

Once  there,  if  such  a  reward  awaits  us,  we  launch  our  little  boats,  and,  bid- 
ding God  speed  us,  embark  upon  its  waters. 


THE   END, 


VALUABLE  STANDARD  WORKS 


PUBLI8IIEU    BY 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  NEW  YORK. 


The  EngHsbman's  Greek  Concordance  of  the  New  Testa- 

MENT ;  being  an  Attempt  at  a  Verbal  Connection  between  the  Greek  and 
the  English  Texts  :  including  a  Concordance  to  the  Proper  Names,  with  In- 
dexes, Greek-English  and  English-Greek.  8vo,  Muslin,  $4  50 ;  Sheep  ex- 
tra, $5  00. 

An  invalaable  treasure  to  the  Biblical  atuicnt.—Presbyttrian. 

A  work  compiled  with  infinite  diligence,  and  likely  to  prove  a  convenient  manual  for  those  who 
are  interested  in  the  difficulties  of  Scrip:ure  interpretation,  as  well  as  to  all  students  of  the  New 
Testament  in  the  original  Greek.  It  contains  every  Greek  word  in  the  New  Testament,  alpha- 
betically arranged,  and  followed  by  a  citation  of  all  the  pas.sages  in  which  it  makes  its  appear- 
ance. Those  passages  are  given  in  English,  and  the  word  answering  to  the  Greek  vocable  is  put 
in  italics.— A'eui  York  Evening  Post. 

Liddell  and  Scott's  Greek-EngHsh  Lexicon; 

Based  on  the  German  Work  of  Francis  Passow:  with  Corrections  and  Ad- 
ditions, and  the  insertion  in  Alphabetical  Order  of  the  Proper  Names  occur- 
ring in  the  principal  Greek  Authors.  By  Henrv  Drisler,  M.A.,  under  the 
Supervision  of  Prof.  Anthon.     Royal  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $5  00. 

Vastly  superior  to  any  Greek-English  Lexicon  ever  published,  either  in  this  country  or  Europe. 
— New  York  Courier  and  Enquirer. 

Ittcomparmbly  the  best  Greek  Lexicon  extant.— i^eis  York  Evangelist. 

Neander's  Life  of  Christ, 

In  its  Historical  Connection  and  its  Historical  Development.  Translated 
from  the  Fourth  German  Edition,  by  Professors  M'Clintock  and  Bluhbn- 
THAL,  of  Dickinson  College.  8vu,  Sheep  extra,  $2  25 ;  Muslin,  $2  00. 
Probably  no  book  has  for  many  years  been  published  of  higher  theological  importance.-  Tribune, 
The  tendency  of  the  whole  work  is  so  decidedly  evangelical  and  beneficial  that  it  will  prove  • 
great  bulwark  against  the  inroads  of  an  infidel  philosophy. — Commercial  Advertiser. 

To  those  who  have  no  acquaintance  with  recent  German  theological  literature,  this  volume  will 
open  a  new  world  of  thought  and  observation. — Philadelphia  Literary  Register. 

Dr.  Chalmers's  Posthumous  Works. 

Edited  by  Rev,  William  Hanna,  LL.D.  Five  Volumes  published,  comprising 
"  Daily  Scripture  Readings,"  in  3  vols.,  and  "  Sabbath  Scripture  Readings," 
in  2  vols.     12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00  per  Volume.    {Vol.  VI.  in  press.) 

These  choice  volumes  will  be  found  to  embody  a  most  delightful  exhibition  of  sanctified  goniut 
and  learning,  such  as  will  afford  instructive  pleasure  to  every  devout  mind.— iV.  Y.  Observer. 

One  of  the  richest  bequosti  to  the  Church  and  to  the  world  of  the  present  age. — ilethoditt 
Quarterly  Review. 

The  New  Testament  in  Greek. 

With  English  Notes,  Critical,  Philological,  and  Exegetical,  Indexes,  &c.,  bv 
Rev.  J.  A.  Spencee,  A.M.     12mo,  Muslin,  81  25 ;  Sheep  extra,  $1  40. 

Tlie  notes  are  of  such  a  style  and  extent  as  to  meet  exactly  the  wants  of  those  for  whom  they 
have  been  prepared. — Tribuni. 

We  have  had,  neither  in  our  own  nor  foreign  issues,  any  volume  like  the  ime  Mr.  Spencer  has 
given  to  the  public,  which  the  mere  beginner  can  consult  and  understand. — Neal's  Pnilad.  Gum 

The  work  is  very  valuable ,  and  we  commend  it  to  Biblical  students  of  all  sects. — Trumpet 

Upham's  Life  and  Religious  Opinions  of  Madame  Gnyon. 

Together  with  some  Account  of  the  Personal  History  and  Religious  Opinions 
of  Archbishop  Fenelon.    2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  82  00. 

The  writings  and  life  of  Madame  Guyon  constitute  a  br.ght  puije  in  the  history  of  that  period 
Her  correspondence  with  Fenelon  forms  a  very  attractive  feature  in  these  volumes.  The  work 
ii  of  unusual  interest,  and  calculated  to  do  much  good. — Albany  Journal. 


i 


•! 


Uph 


Valuable  Standard  Works  Published  by  Harper  cj-  Brothers. 

am's  Life  of  Faith: 

Embracing  some  of  the  Scriptural  Principles  or  Doctrines  of  Faith,  the  Pow- 
er or  Effect  of  Faith  in  the  Regulation  of  Man's  Inward  Nature,  and  the  Re- 
lation of  Faith  to  the  Divine  Guidance.     12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

Upham's  Principles  of  tiie  Interior  or  Hidden  Life. 

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anne  of  Faith  and  Perfect  Love.     12it>o,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

Uphani'a  delinitioii  of  Christian  perfectioti  is  lucid  and  wpll-^unrded,  and  corresponds  esinntial- 
ly  with  Wesley's.  In  sliUin);  the  means  of  attainment  we  think  the  anthur  reniarkalily  happy. 
The  explanation  of  appropriating^  faith  is  very  clear  and  satisfactory  in  the  "  Interior  Life,"  but  it 
illustrated  and  applied  in  the  "  Life  of  Faith"  more  harmoniously  and  fully  than  in  any  other  work 
with  which  we  are  acquainted. — Methodiat  Quarterly  Review.  , . 

Upham's  Life  of  Madame  Catharine  Adorna. 

Including  some  leading  Facts  and  Traits  in  her  Religious  Experience.  To- 
gether with  Explanations  and  Remarks,  tending  to  Illustrate  the  Doctrine 
of  Holiness.     12mo,  Muslin,  gilt  edges,  60  cents. 

Madame  Adorna  is  the  St.  Catharine  of  Genoa,  of  tho  Romish  calendar,  a  lady  of  pre-eminent 
piety  and  of  a  mystical  cast  of  character,  which  rendered  her  a  sort  of  Madame  Guyon  of  the  fif 
teenth  century.    She  was  a  perfectionist,  and  her  latest  liiographer  inclines  to  the  enthusiastic 
'    creed  of  those  who  teach  the  doctrine  of  human  perfectibility. — Churchman. 

Barnes's  Notes  on  the  New  Testament,  -     ' 

Explanatory  and  Practical.  Maps  and  Engravings.  10  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  76 
cents  per  Volume.  (Each  Volume  sold  separately.)  Vols.  I.  and  II.  comprise 
The  Four  Gospels — III.  Acts  of  the  Apostles — IV.  Epistle  to  the  Romans — V. 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians — VI.  Second  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  and 
the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians — VII.  Epistles  to  the  Ephesians,  the  Colossians, 
and  the  Philippians — VIII.  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians,  Timothy,  Titus, 
and  Philemon — IX.  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews — X.  General  Epistles  of  James. 
Peter,  John,  and  Jude. 
QUESTIONS  on  the  Above.  18mo,  15  cents  per  Volume.  As  follows  :  Vol 
I.  Matthew— II.  Mark  and  Luke— III.  John— IV.  Acts— V.  Rom%ns— VI 
First  Corinthians — VII.  Hebrews. 

I  know  of  no  commentary  so  succinct,  full,  and  impartial ;  it  is  fitted  to  instruct  the  teachar  no 
less  than  the  Sunday  school  scholar. — Rev.  Dr.  CUMMINO,  of  London. 

Numerous  similar  testimonials  from  other  distinguished  clergymen  of  England  and  the  United 
States  havo  been  received  by  the  publishers. 

Prescott's  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Pern. 

With  a  Preliminary  View  of  the  Civilization  of  the  Incas.    Portraits,  Maps, 

&c.     2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $4  00  ;  Sheep  extra,  $4  50 ;  half  Calf,  $5  00. 
He  now  occupies  a  place  on  tho  highest  seat  in  the  temple  of  literary  fame  which  is  reached 

by  the  living.    The  "  Conquest  of  Peru"  is  one  of  the  most  romantic  episodes  in  the  history  V 

the  world. — Knickerbocker. 

Mr.  Prescott  has  added  to  his  well-merited  reputation  by  his"  Conquest  of  Peru." — Blackwoox 
The  "  Conquest  of  Peru"  may  take  a  foremost  place  among  the  histories  of  the  present  day,  and 

will  not  shrink  from  a  comparison  with  many  in  past  ages. — London  Spectator. 

Prescott's  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico. 

With  the  Life  of  the  Conqueror,  Hernando  Cortez,  and  a  View  of  the  An- 
cient Mexican  Civilization.  Portrait  and  Maps.  3  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $6  00 ; 
Sheep  extra,  $6  75  ;  half  Calf,  $7  50. 

Mr.  Prescott  appears  to  us  to  possess  almost  every  qualification  for  his  task.    He  has  a  pure, 

■iniple,  and  eloquent  style  ;  a  keen  relish  for  tho  picturesque  ;  a  quick  and  discerning:  judgment 

.    of  character ;  and  a  calm,  generous,  and  enlightened  spirit  of  philanthropy. — Edinburgh  Review 

His  narrative  is  flawing  and  spirited,  sometimes  very  picturesque  ;  above  all,  his  judgment!  are 
unaffectedly  i':andid  and  impartial. — Quarterly  Review. 

Prescott's  Reign  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  « 

The  Catholic.  With  Engravings.  3  vols.  Svo,  Muslin,  $6  GO ;  Sheep  ex- 
tra, $6  75  ;  half  Calf,  $7  50. 

While  the  English  language  shall  be  used,  we  venture  to  say  Prescott's  "  History  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella"  will  he  read. — Biblical  Repository, 

Written  in  a  spirit  and  style  worthy  of  Xeuophon,  and  may  rank  among  the  nrst  hitti^riM  iu 
the  English  language  —Gentleman't  Sfagazine. 


Valuable  Standard  Works  Published  by  Harper  dj-  Brothert.  1 

Prescott's  Biographical  and  Critical  Miscellanies. 

Containing  Notices  oC  Charles  Brockden  Brown,  the  American  Novelist- 
Asylum  for  the  Blind— Irvinjg's  Conquest  of  Granada— Cervantes— Sir  W 
Scott— Chateaubriand's  English  Literature — Bancroft's  United  States— Ma- 
dame Calderon's  Life  in  Mexico — Moliere — Italian  Narrative  Poetry— Poetry 
and  Romance  of  the  Italians — Scottish  Song — Da  Ponte's  Observations.  8vo, 
Muslin,  $2  00  ;  Sheep  extra,  $2  25  ;  half  Calf,  $2  50. 

Thn  essays  embrace  a  vuriety  of  literary  sulijects,  and  treat  of  American,  Spanish,  French, 
Italian,  and  English  authors.  AH  who  love  a  liglitand  pleasant  style  uf  observation  thrown  over 
topics  (>r  universal  interest  will  find  enough  here  to  afford  them  acceptable  infurniation  and  ra- 
tional pastime. — Literary  Gazette. 

Webster's  Dictionary  of  the  English  Language. 

Exhibiting  the  Origin,  Orthography,  Pronunciation,  and  Definitions  of  Words. 
Abridged  from  the  Quarto  Edition  of  the  Author.  To  which  are  added  a  Sy- 
nopsis of  Words  differently  Pronounced  by  different  Orthoepists  ;  and  Walk- 
er's Key  to  the  Classical  Pronunciation  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  Scripture  Proper 
Names.  A  new  Edition,  revised  and  enlarged  by  Chauncey  A.  Goodrich, 
Professor  in  Yale  College.  With  the  .\ddition  of  a  Vocabulary  of  Modern 
Geographical  Names,  with  their  Pronunciation.    8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $3  50. 

This  new  and  greatly-improved  edition  embraces  all  the  words  in  the  qimrto  edition,  and  also 
an  arrangement  of  Synonyms  under  the  leading  words,  not  to  bo  found  incorporated  in  the  same 
form  into  any  similar  work.     It  is  by  far  the  best  English  Dictionary  extant.— Triiune. 

The  most  thorough  and  complete  manual  of  our  language  yet  offered  to  the  public— Ltf.  World. 

This  edition  of  Webster  is  all  that  could  be  desired. — New  York  Commercial  Advertiser. 

It  must  be  the  standard  English  Dictionary  throughout  the  country.— iV.  Y.  Courier  and  Enq. 

M'Ciintock  and  Crooks's  First  Book  in  Greek. 

Containing  a  full  View  of  the  Forms  of  Words,  with  Vocabularies  and  copi- 
ous Exercises,  on  the  Method  of  constant  Imitation  and  Repetition.  12mo, 
Sheep  extra,  75  cents. 

As  an  aid  to  tlie  teacher  and  pupil,  it  su|>plies  the  inadequacy  of  all  former  books  in  the  language 
on  the  subject.  It  relieves  the  study  from  that  irksomeness  which  too  often  makes  it  distasteful  to 
the  young  pupil,  and  gives  a  good  foundation  as  he  progresses. — Philadelphia  North  American, 

M'Clintock  and  Crooks's  First  Book  in  Latin. 

Containing  Grammar,  Exercises,  and  Vocabularies,  on  the  Method  of  constant 
Imitation  and  Repetition.     12mo,  Sheep,  75  cents.     (Fifth  Edition,  revised.) 

The  best  book  for  beginners  in  Latin  that  is  published  in  this  country. — Dr.  J.  P.  Durbin. 

A  mt.re  philosophical,  thorough,  nnd  practical  system  of  teaching  Latin  we  have  never  seen. — 
Professor  Salkeld,  Naugatuch,  Ctnnecticut. 

I  am  confident  that  no  teacher  who  studies  the  success  of  his  pupils  v.  ill  adopt  any  other  text- 
book than  this  in  the  beginning  of  a  course  in  Latin. — Rev.  W.  H.  Gilder,  Flushing,  L.  I. 

I  have  examined  with  much  attention  the  "  First  Book  in  Latin"  of  Professors  M'Clintock  and 
Crooks,  and  am  happy  to  bear  testimony  to  the  practical  tact  and  sound  scholarship  which  they 
have  shown  in  the  preparation  of  the  work.  The  arrangement  is  simple  and  lucid,  and  the  grad- 
ual steps  by  which  the  youthful  student  is  introduced  to  the  grammatical  laws  of  the  language, 
both  as  it  regards  etymology  and  syntax,  ore  such  as,  in  my  estimation,  to  render  the  book  deserv- 
ing of  the  patronage  of  every  institute.  I  most  heartily  wish  it  the  extensive  circulation  it  so  em- 
inently deserves. — John  J.  Owen,  Principal  of  the  Cornelius  Institute. 

Wheeler's  History  of  Congress,  Biographical  and  Polit* 

ICAL  :  comprising  Memoirs  of  Members  of  the  Congress  ofthe  United  States, 
drawn  from  authentic  Sources,  together  with  a  History  of  Internal  Improve- 
ments from  the  Foundation  of  the  Government  to  the  Present  Time.  With 
numerous  Steel  Portraits  and  Fac-simile  Autographs.  8vo,  Muslin,  $3  00 
per  Volume.     {Vols.  I.  and  II.  now  ready.) 

The  eminent  impartiality  and  skill  displayed  by  the  editor  in  the  preparation  of  this  valuable 
work  must  ensure  for  it  a  wide  and  deserved  popularity.    It  ought  to  find  iti  way  to  every  well- 
appointed  library,  public  and  private. — Mirror. 
It  tills  a  hiatus  in  the  history  of  this  country. — B.  B.  French,  Washington.  .    .    .  y 

Indispensable  to  every  politician,  statesman,  and  lawyer.— Commer(ia<  Adver/t«er.    '   '    * 

Hunter's  Sacred  Biography; 

Or,  the  History  ofthe  Patriarchs.     To  which  is  added  the  History  of  Deborah, 
Ruth,  and  Hannah,  and  also  the  History  of  Jesus  Christ.    8vo,  Muslin,  $1  75. 
A  truly  fascinating  work.    Dr.  Hunter  was  a  man  of  learning  ;  hii  writings  are  eloquent,  and 
thow  hov/  well  he  had  studied  human  nature.— Dr.  Chai.mehs. 


1 


♦  Valuable  Standa  d  Worka  Publtahed  by  Harper  4  Brothera 

Pictorial  History  of  England. 

Being  a  History  of  the  People  as  well  as  the  Kingdom  to  the  Reign  of  George 
III.  Profusely  Illustrated  with  many  Hundred  Engravings  of  Monumental 
Records,  Coins,  Civil  and  Military  Costume,  Domestic  Buildings,  Furniture, 
Cathedrals  and  oilier  great  Works  of  Architecture,  &c.  4  vols,  imperial  8vo, 
Muslin,  $14  00  ;  Sheep  extra,  $15  00 ;  half  Calf,  $16  00. 

The  only  really  instruclivn  history  of  Great  Britain  yet  written.  It  ia  projected  on  a  wale  rec- 
ommended by  Macaulay  and  Carlyle  aa  the  only  veritable  thing  to  be  dignifled  with  the  name  of 
hiatory.  The  writers  have  concentrnted  a  great  deal  of  matter  that  ia  scattered  in  various  learnMl 
tomes,  and  presented  it  in  a  most  attractive  form. 

One  of  the  most  entertaining  works  in  the  language  :  there  is  no  single  work  on  English  historj 
moro  valuable.  It  is  impossible  that  a  man  should  be  familiar  with  this  pictorial  history  ulone 
without  attaining  some  degree  of  relinemant. — New  York  Neu), 

Hallam's  Historical  Works. 

Comprising  "  The  Constitutional  History  of  England,"  8vo,  Muslin,  $2  00 ; 
Sheep  extra,  $3  25  ;  "  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,"  2  vols.  8vo, 
Sheep  extra,  $3  75  ;  "  State  of  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages,"  Svo,  Sheep 
extra,  $2  00.  Each  Work  sold  separately ;  or,  Bound  uniformly  in  Sets  of 
4  vols.  Sheep  extra,  $7  00. 

Mr.  Ilallam  is  far  better  qualified  than  any  other  writer  of  our  times  for  the  task  he  has  accom- 
plished. He  has  great  industry  and  great  acuteness ;  his  knowledge  is  extensive,  various,  and 
profound  ;  his  mind  is  equally  distinguished  by  the  amplitude  of  its  grasp  and  by  the  delicary  of 
Its  touch.  On  n  general  survey,  we  do  not  scruple  to  pronounce  the  "  Constitutional  History"  he 
most  important  book  that  we  evor  read. — MacaulaV. 

This  is  a  production  uf  the  greatest  value,  and  distinguished,  like  his  other  works,  fur  rescarct. 
judgment,  taste,  and  elegance. — Chancellor  KENT. 

Hall's  Complete  Works? 

With  a  brief  Memoir  of  his  Life,  by  Dr.  Greoory,  and  Observations  on  his 
Character  as  a  Preacher,  by  the  Rev.  John  Foster.  Edited  by  Olinthub 
Gregorv,  LL.D.,  and  Rev.  Joseph  Belcher.  Portrait.  4  vols.  Svo,  Sheep 
extra,  $6  00. 

The  name  of  Robert  Hall  will  be  placed  by  posterity  among  the  best  writers  of  the  age. — Sii 
James  Mackintosh. 

Whoever  wishes  to  see  the  English  language  in  its  perfection  must  read  the  writings  of  that 
great  divine,  Robert  Hall.  He  combines  the  beauties  of  Johnson,  Addison,  and  Burko,  without 
their  imperfections. — Duoald  Stewart. 

The  sermons  and  discourses  of  Robert  Hall  are  wonderful  compositions.— i^oml.  Quarterly  Re» 

Jay's  Complete  Works: 

Comprising  his  Sermons,  Family  Discourses,  Morning  and  Evening  Exercises 
for  every  Day  in  the  Year,  Family  Prayers,  Lectures,  Lives  of  Cornelius 
Winter,  John  Clark,  &c.  Author's  enlarged  Edition,  revised.  3  vols.  Svo, 
Muslin,  $5  00  ;  Sheep  extra,  $5  50. 

They  were  written  not  for  a  party,  but  to  refresh  and  gladden  the  whole  Church  of  Christ.— 
Congregational  Magazine. 

We  are  astonished  at  the  variety  and  unction  that  are  to  be  found  in  these  spiritual  efTuaiom 
— Monthly  Review. 

Jay's  Morning  and  Evening  Exercises 

For  the  Closet,  for  every  Day  in  the  Year.  Portrait.  Svo,  Muslin,  $1  25 ; 
half  Morocco,  $1  50. 

Of  these  productions  we  speak  from  recollection,  but  the  recollection  is  so  vivid  as  fully  to  jus- 
tify the  highest  praise  that  language  can  express.    The  "  Exercises"  consist  of  refloclions  for 
every  morning  and  evening  in  the  year  on  detached  passages  of  Scripture  ;  and,  whether  used  ia 
the  closet  or  in  the  family,  will  be  found  an  invaluable  code  of  instruction  in  practical  and  expe^' 
imeutal  religion — Evangelical  Repository. 

Dwight's  Theology  Explained  and  Defended, 

In  a  series  of  Sermons.  With  a  Memoir  of  the  Life  of  the  Author.  Por- 
trait.    4  vols.  Svo,  Muslin,  $6  00 ;  Sheep  extra,  $6  50. 

As  a  work  of  systematic  theology,  it  has  no  equal  in  the  language.  The  admirable  arrange- 
ment, the  clear  and  eloquent  style,  the  masterly  and  profound  argument,  and  the  most  lovely  spirit 
of  piety  and  reverence  which  characterize  its  pages,  have  long  since  given  it  a  character  in  this 
country  and  England  that  no  other  treatise  has  obtained.— Z<ut/ieran. 

His  sermons  are,  by  general  consent,  among  the  finest  specimens  ot  that  kind  of  writing  whick 
the  language  affords. — Methodist  Quarterly  Review, 


Valuable  Standard  Works  Published  by  Harper  tj-  Brothers. 


Macaulay's  History  of  England 


From  the  Accession  of  James  II.  With  an  original  Portrait  of  the  Author 
8to,  Muslin,  $2  00  per  Volume.     ( Vols.  1.  and  II.  now  ready.) 

Estimated  even  by  the  ordinary  means  of  judgment,  Mr.  Macaulay's  qualifications  and  opportu- 
nities are  such  as  to  warrant  no  ordinary  anticipations.  By  the  side  of  signal  political  facilities, 
the  minor  advantages  of  rich  materials  and  an  almost  untrodden  field  become  nearly  im|)erccpti- 
ble.  The  domestic  ond  the  external  life  of  the  British  nation  are  to  be  distinctly  portrayed.  A 
perfect  history  can  never  be  written  ;  hut  the  approximation  has  been  made  by  Mr.  Macaulay  t« 
this  consummate  ideal.  He  has,  as  wo  before  ol)served,  had  the  double  advantage  of  unusual!} 
good  guidancn  and  an  almost  untrodden  field.— London  Times. 

A  book  which  will  bo  highly  popular  as  long  as  the  English  language  lasts.  His  style  is  terte 
nnd  brilliant,  and  his  general  views  of  a  far-seeing  and  impartial  character.  It  is,  indeed,  delight- 
f  i.  reading,  but  it  stands  in  no  need  of  the  praise— the  great  praise — we  arc  bound  to  bestow  upoa 
il.—Lonilon  Literary  (lazette, 

Mr.  Macaulay  frequently  rectifies  a  general  prejudice  by  bringing  to  his  task  a  calmer  and  more 
searching  consideration,  il  not  a  larger  mind,  than  has  yet  been  brought  to  the  subject.  Abeolato 
novelty  in  the  main  facts  will  not,  of  course,  be  found,  but  in  those  traits  that  mark  the  maonen 
of  the  time,  the  general  reader  will  be  introduced  to  almost  a  new  world. — London  Spectator. 


Melville's  Mardi;  and  a  Voyage  thither. 


12mo. 

"  This  new  book  is  characterized  by  that  rare  brilliancy  and  graphic  power  which  have  rendei 
ed  the  author's  previous  works  such  general  favorites ;  it  is  even  more  stirring  in  its  narrative, 
more  glowing  in  its  pictures,  and  altogether  will  be  found  a  more  unique  production  than  either 
of  its  predecessors." 


Melville's  Omoo: 


Or,  a  Narrative  of  Adventures  in  the  South  Seas.  12mo,  Muslin,  $1  25 ;  Pa- 
per, $1  00. 

A  stirring  narrative  of  very  pleasant  reading,  possessing  much  of  the  charm  that  has  rendered 
Robinson  Crusoe  immortal — life-liko  description. — Douglas  Jerrold. 

Impressive  pictures  and  piquant  anecdotes. — London  Athenaum. 

The  phosnix  of  modern  voyagers,  sprung,  it  would  seem,  from  the  mingled  ashes  of  Captain 
Cook  and  Robinson  Crusoe.  The  book  is  excellent,  quite  first-rate — the  "clear  grit,"  as  Mel- 
ville's countrymen  would  say. — Blackwood. 

These  adventures  are  dashed  off  in  a  style  worthy  of  Philip  Quarles  or  Robinson  Crusoe. — Lon- 
don Literary  Gazette. 

Webster's  Diplomatic  and  Official  Papers 

While  Secretary  of  state.    With  Portrait.    8vo,  Muslin,  $1  75. 

It  is  a  very  voluable  volume  ;  its  publication  at  the  present  time  is  very  opportune.— WdsAtn^ 
(on  Union. 

Mr.  Webster's  most  enduring  monument  will  be  this  book.  It  is  in  itself  a  complete  history 
of  the  important  events  which  transpired  during  his  term  of  oilicp,  and  ^«ill  make  his  name  no 
less  honored  by  future  statesmen  than  it  is  by  his  ciitempnraries.  The  volume  is  a  most  valuable 
one  of  State  Papers,  and  is  accompanied  with  an  introduction,  said  to  be  written  by  a  distinguish- 
ed gentleman  of  Massachusetts,  remarkable  as  a  compact  and  lucid  history  of  tho  various  treat- 
ies, and  the  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  work.  The  book  also  contains  a  fine  portrait  of 
Mr.  Webster,  and  an  excellent  map  of  the  various  boundary  lines  between  the  United  States  and 
the  British  provinces.— S/ondari. 


Clay's  (Cassius  M.)  Writings ; 


Including  Speeches  and  Addresses.     Edited,  with  a  Preface  and  Memoir,  by 
Horace  Greeley,  Esq.     With  Portrait,     8vo,  Muslin,  $1  50. 

This  beautiful  edition  of  the  good  sayings  of  a  man  battling  for  the  principles  of  universal  frci 
aoin.     We  venture  to  say  that  no  one  can  re.'id  this  compilation  without  feeling  a  deeper  anil 
livelier  sense  of  the  loveliness  of  freedom,  and  a  more  profound  hatred  of  oppression.    The  Pref- 
ace and  Memoir  from  tho  pen  of  II.  Greeley  are  alone  worth  the  price  of  the  viorii.— Cleveland 
Democrat. 

His  works  are  tho  genuine  product  of  the  agitations  of  the  times,  and  will  havo  their  effect  in 
the  formation  of  public  opinion. — New  York  Evening  Post. 


Abbott's  Summer  in  Scotland. 


thick 


With  Numerous  Illustrations.    12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

Truthful  in  its  descriptions,  beautiful  in  its  stylo,  and  unexceptionable  in  its  moral  tone. — Lorn- 
ton  Athenaum. 

Wo  have  been  strangely  interested  in  reading  tho  author's  account  of  his  voyage,  and  especial- 
ly the  incident  of  a  "  Funeral  at  Sea,"  which  is  detailed  with  a  minuteness  and  graphic  skill  sel- 
dom excelled.  We  commend  Mr.  Abbott's  very  agreeable  volume  to  the  perusal  of  our  friends 
generally,  as  one  of  more  than  ordinary  attraciiuii  and  interest,  esoecially  to  those  who  have  any 
affinities  in  legend-loving  Scotland.— tfome  Journal. 


6  Valuable  Standard  Works  PuMishe.l  by  Harper  <f  Brother!. 

Abbott's  History  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Engravings.     12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

Thur«!  are  portion!  nf  it  whioh,  not  only  for  the  facts  relaed,  but  for  the  manner  in  which  thejr 
•re  related,  can  hardly  fail  to  penetrate  the  inmost  soul  of  the  most  indiflvrent  reader. — Exprti$ 

Abbott's  History  of  King  Charles  I.  of  England. 

Willi  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.     12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

We  are  much  pleased  with  these  historical  works  by  Mr.  Ablwtt.  They  are  ottrnctivoly  writ- 
ten and  published,  and  will  tempt  many  youthful  minds  to  their  cheerful  perusal,  Thi^  are  well 
prepared  books,  and  should  be  sought  after.— iVeui  York  Observer. 

Abbott's  History  of  Alexander  the  Great. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.     12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

We  have  read  its  pages  with  the  most  intense  interest ;  it  combinni  the  sterling  worth  of  bit- 
toricnl  truth  with  the  enchantment  of  romance. —  Eastern  Times. 

Abbott's  History  of  Hannibal. 

With  an  Illuminated  T'tle-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.     I2mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

/V  beautiful  series  of  historical  narratives,  designed  by  the  author  for  popular  reading.  The 
works  are  well  adapted  for  this  object,  as  leading  events  in  history  are  detailed  in  conformity 
with  ideas  and  conceptions  of  our  time. — Baltimore  American. 

Abbott's  History  of  Queen  Elizabeth  of  England. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.     12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

Mr.  Abbott's  series  of  popular  biographies  are  among  the  most  attractively  published  books  ol 
the  day,  from  the  taste  and  elegance  of  type,  paper,  form  uf  printing,  and  the  selections  of  the 
engravings.— Literary  World, 

Abbott's  History  of  King  Charles  II.  of  England. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.     12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

Abbott's  History  of  Julius  Caesar. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.     12mo,  Muslin 
60  cents. 

Abbott's  History  of  Maria  Antoinette  of  France. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.  12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

Abbott's  History  of  King  Richard  III.  of  England. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.  12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

Abbott's  History  of  Alfred  the  Great. 

With  an  Illuminated  Title-page  and  Numerous  Illustrations.  12mo,  Muslin, 
60  cents. 

Abbott's  Kings  and  Queens;  .  .  . 

Or,  Life  in  the  Palace :  consisting  of  Historical  Sketches  of  Josephine  and 
Maria  Louisa.  Louis  Philippe,  Ferdinand  of  Austria,  Nicholas,  Isabella  II., 
Leopold,  and  Victoria.     With  Numerous  Engravings.     12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00 

Simple  in  style,  clear  in  narrative,  and  admirably  adapted  to  excite  the  interest  of  the  reader. 
No  writer  of  the  day  has  a  hnppier  faculty  at  making  books  of  this  kind  acceptable  and  useful 
than  Mr.  Abbtitt. — New  York  Courier. 
.>'  This  series  nf  historical  works  by  Mr.  Abbott,  intended  to  embrace  the  biographies  of  the  great 
persoiinges  of  all  times,  is  well  conceived  and  well  executed.  The  illustrations  are  numerous 
•nd  appropriate.— l/hton. 


I 


Vuiuabte  Slamlard  Works  Published  by  Harper  Jt  Brothers.  1 

Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans, 

From  the  Reformation  in  1518  to  the  Kevohition  in  1688  ;  comprising  an  Ac- 
count of  their  Principles,  Suflferings,  and  the  Lives  and  Characters  of  their 
most  considerahle  Divines.  With  Notes,  by  J.  O.  Choulbs,  D.D.  With 
Portraits.     2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $3  50  ;  Sheep,  $4  00. 

Thi5  valiml)ln  and  interesting  work  develops  the  causns  of  the  primitive  settlement  of  the  col 
onies  nf  New  EiiKlaod.containiii;  the  most  compendious  view  ofthu  United  States  in  their  earl) 
imivinotal  dependence  which  ciin  be  found.  The  history  is  judicious,  iinpurtial,  and  uniropeacb 
nlily  accurate  and  authentic. — Christian  intelligencer. 

Forster's  Lives  of  Celebrated  Britisli  Statesmen. 

Coniprising  Sir  John  Eliot  (Portrait) ;  Thomas  Wentwortli,  Earl  of  Strafford; 
John  Pym  (Portrait) ;  John  Hampden  (Portrait) ;  Sir  Henry  Vane  the  Young- 
er; Henry  Marten;  Oliver  Cromwell  (Portrait).  With  a  Treatise  on  the 
popular  Progress  in  English  History.  Edited  by  the  Rev.  J.  0.  Choules. 
8vo,  Muslin,  $1  75  ;  Sheep,  $2  00. 

There  is  no  period  in  the  history  of  mankind  more  truly  interesting  to  evpry  intelhf^ent  Amei 
ican  than  that  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England  ;  and  there  is  no  form  in  which  it  can  be  so 
perfectly  understood  as  in  the  personal  history  uf  the  great  leaders  uf  that  age.— Onondaga  Dem. 

Lamartine's  History  of  tlie  Girondists ; 

Or,  Personal  Memoirs  of  the  Patriots  of  the  French  Revolution.  From  un 
published  Sources.     3  vols.  12mo,  Paper,  $1  80;  Muslin,  $3  10. 

The  style  of  Lnmartine  heightens  the  interest  of  the  scenes  here  portrayed,  which  in  them- 
selves possess  the  elements  of  romnncn  beyond  those  of  any  other  period  of  the  world's  history. 
There  are  lessons  of  immeasurable  value,  and  they  deserve  to  be  studied  attentively.— OiMrver. 

Pardoe's  (Miss)  Louis  tlie  Fonrteenth, 

And  the  Court  of  France  in  the  Seventeenth  Century.  Numerous  Engrav- 
ings, Portraits,  &c.  2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  S3  50 ;  imitation  Morocco,  gill 
edges,  $4  25. 

An  accession  to  our  literature,  as  eminently  useful  as  it  is  delightful.— BrtlifA  Quarterly  Ret. 
A  most  delightful  history.    As  we  read,  warriors,  churchmen,  statesmen,  poets,  and  artist* 
crowd  the  scene,  and  render  almost  too  rich  the  page. — London  Weekly  Chronicle. 

Dryden's  Complete  Works. 

With  a  Memoir.     Portrait.     2  vols.  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $3  75. 

The  public  voice  has  assigned  to  Dryden  the  tlrst  place  in  the  sec<md  rank  of  our  poeti — nu 
mean  s'ation  in  u  table  of  intellectual  precedency  so  rich  in  illustrious  names.  His  manner  is  al- 
most perfect.  Magnificent  versification  and  ingenious  combinations  rarely  harmonized  with  ex- 
pressions of  deep  feeling. — Macaulay. 

Saurin's  Sermons. 

Translated  by  Rev.  R.  Robinson,  and  others.  Revised  and  corrected  by  Rev. 
S.  BuRDEB,  A.M.     Portrait.     2  vols.  8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $3  75. 

Saurin  is  always  copious,  elegant,  and  devout.— Dr.  Blair. 

The  plainness  of  Tillotson,  the  unction  of  Massillon,  the  richness  of  Barrow,  the  power  of 
Horsley,  and  the  evangelical  faithfulness  of  Du  Bosc,  are  all,  in  a  degree,  mingled  and  concen 
trated  in  the  sermons  of  our  author.— Dr.  Henshaw. 

Prideaux's  Connection  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 

In  the  History  of  the  Jews  and  neighboring  Nations,  from  the  Declension  of 
the  Kingdoms  of  Israel  and  Judah  to  the  Time  of  Christ.  2  vols.  8vo,  Sheep 
extra,  $3  75. 

A  standard  book  in  theological  literature :  there  are  some  works,  especially,  without  the  knowl 
edge  0.'°  which  the  Scriptures  can  not  be  profoundly  or  accurately  comprehended,  and  Prideaux's 
is  one  of  them.  We  know  not  how  to  express  our  high  opinion  of  the  value  of  this  production, 
especially  for  students  and  ministers. — Methodist  Quarterly  Review. 


Brown's  Dictionary  of  the  Holy  Bible 


le  great 
merous 


Containing  an  Account  of  the  Persons,  Places,  and  other  Objects,  and  an 
Explanation  of  Terms,  &c.  With  a  Life  of  the  Author,  and  an  Essay  on  the 
Evidences  of  Christianity.     8vo,  Sheep,  extra,  $1  75. 

In  this  valuable  compendium  of  Biblical  science  and  illustration  the  author  has  incorporated 
the  quintessence  of  numerous  old  divines,  such  us  Turretine,  Pictet,  Mastricht,  and  Owen.  It  is 
a  book  of  such  various,  extensive,  and  acknowledged  merit,  that  perhaps  there  is  no  work  of  its 
size  more  useful  in  the  study  of  the  Scritpures.  It  will  be  found  peculiarly  useful  to  studenta 
of  divinity  and  theolopan*. 


8  Valuable  Standard  Works  Publtthed  by  Harper  <f-  Brothers. 

!^rande's  Encyclopedia  of  Science,  Literature,  and  Art. 

Comprising  the  History,  Description,  and  Scientific  Principles  of  every  Branch 
of  Human  Knowledge,  &c.  Edited  by  W.  T.  Branoe,  F.R.S.L.  and  E.,  as- 
sisted by  J.  Cauvin,  Esq.  The  various  Departments  by  eminent  Literary  and 
Scientific  Ggntlemen.    Numerous  Engravings.    8vo,  Sheep  extra,  S4  00. 

This  valuable  work,  for  accurate  inrormatiun  upon  a  vast  variety  of  subjects  brought  up  to  tha 
present  day  and  carefully  digested,  is  unrivaled  and  unequaled. — Tait's  Magazine.  ' 

Clear  mid  authentic,  copious  without  prolixity,  it  does  not  furnish  a  bald  explanation  of  fartj 
and  terms,  but  a  development  of  principles  well  illustrated  and  explained. — Times. 

He  who  has  no  encyclopedia  will  find  it  an  excellent  substitute  for  one  ;  and  he  who  has,  will 
find  it  a  valuable  supplement. — Eclectic  Review. 

Blair's  Sermons. 

To  which  is  prefixed  the  Life  and  Character  of  the  Author,  by  James  Fin- 
LAY80N,  D.D.     8vo,  Muslin,  f  1  50. 

The  writings  of  this  eminent  scholar  and  divine  have  long  been  regarded  as  among  the  purest 
models  of  English  style  ;  terse,  polished,  and  perspicuous,  they  exhibit  the  true  and  perfect  stand- 
ard of  pulpit  eloquence.  No  person  can  peruse  these  masterly  productions  without  having  his 
understanding  tnvigoi-aled,  and  his  love  for  the  true  and  beautiful  maturrd — Y.  Y.  Courier. 


Stephens's  Books  of  Travels. 


Travels  in  Central  America,  Chiapas,  and  Yucatan.  Map  and  88  En- 
gravings.    2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $5  00. 

Incidents  of  Travel  in  Yucatan.  With  120  Engravings,  from  Drawings 
by  F.  Cathkrwood,  Esq.     2  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $5  00. 

Ttavels  in  Greece,  Turkey,  Russia,  and  Poland.  Engravings.  2  vols. 
12mo,  Muslin,  $1  75. 

Travels  in  Egypt,  Arabia  Petr^ea,  and  the  Holy  Land.  Engravings. 
2  vols.  12mo,  Muslin,  $1  75. 

Very  pleasant  volumes.  Such  is  the  spirit  of  the  author's  descriptions,  and  the  vivid  force  ani 
truth  of  his  narrative,  that  reading  his  work  is  like  accompanying  him  on  his  route. — Athenttum. 

The  pleusautest  and  best  works  that  have  lately  appeared. — London  Spectator. 


Thirlwall's  History  of  Greece. 


3  vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $3  50 ;  Sheep  extra,  $4  00. 

A  History  of  Greece,  written  with  profound  and  well-digested  learning.     No  history  now  eziiu 
in  German,  or  in  any  language,  whicli  can  be  roinpnrcd  with  Thirlwail's. — Eclectic  Keview 
His  work  Is  candid,  learned,  and  honest. — Southern  Quarterly  Review. 

Crabb's  English  Synonyms  Explained. 

With  copious  Illustrations  and  Explanations,  drawn  from  the  best  Writers. 
8vo,  Sheep  extra,  $2  00. 

Wherever  the  EnglJsh  language  is  spoken,  this  book  will  prove  of  utility,  and,  next  lo  the  Bible 
aud  Dictionary,  should  have  a  place  in  every  household. — American  Review. 

Alison's  History  of  Europe, 

From  the  Commencement  of  the  French  Revolution  in  1789  to  the  Restora- 
tion of  the  Bourbons  in  1815.  In  addition  to  the  Notes  on  Chapter  LXXVI., 
which  correct  the  errors  of  the  original  work  concerning  the  United  States, 
a  copious  Analvtical  Index  has  been  appended  to  tiiis  American  Edition.  4 
vols.  8vo,  Muslin,  $4  75  ;  Sheep  extra,  $6  00. 

By  far  the  most  remarkable  historical  work  of  the  century.  It  exhibits  remarkable  diligence,  and 
does  impartial  justice  on  higher  principles  than  have  yet  been  announced  in  history. — Quart.  RtV' 

Alison  combines  the  minutest  attention  to  detail,  the  utmost  carefulness  in  authenticating  facts 
with  the  greatest  facility  in  deducing  principles  and  laying  them  before  the  reader, — Timet. 

Oir  of  the  noblest  offerings  which  our  ago  has  laid  upon  iho  altar  of  historic  literature.— £2aeib- 
Kood'a  Magazine, 

iiison's  Military  Life  of  John,  Duke  of  Marlborough. 

With  Maps.     12mo,  Muslin,  $1  00. 

A  volume  of  great  value  to  the  general  reader. — Literary  Gazette. 

It  presents  a  more  favorable  specimen  of  the  author's  style  than  hi?  •j^icni  "  "  History  of  En 
rope." — London  Spectator. 


Croly's  Life  of  George  IV. 

With  Anecdotes  of  distinguished  Persons. 


ISmo,  Muslin,  46  cents. 


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